"Le Carré taught me that you can write spy novels"

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'Le Carré taught me that you can write spy novels'

Speaker, author, storyteller, sly - Alexander McNabb extols and shreds his reading list

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Published: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 12:00 AM

Last updated: Fri 8 Apr 2016, 9:15 AM

What book(s) are you reading right now?
I've just finished re-reading JG Ballard's rather naughty Crash, which is a book that revolves around the destruction and ?human damage of car crashes. It's a very screwed-up book which you could probably argue charts the beginning's of Ballard's obsession with dominating male figures who act as the locus for dystopian groups within societies which seem outwardly normal and yet are themselves dystopian, leading to books like High Rise and Super-Cannes. As I mentioned during a panel at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, I'd love to have been able to introduce him to Arabian Ranches, he'd have had a field day. It was that mention triggered me re-exploring some of his works, which had given me so much pleasure in the past. Vermillion Sands - there's a book...
What are the books that changed your life and shaped your outlook?
Seven Pillars of Wisdom and The Mint tri-ggered my mild obsession with TE Lawrence (I have quite the collection of ?Lawrence first editions and other marginalia), while some of my favourite writing of all time came from another Lawrence - Lawrence Durrell, whose series, the ?Alexandria Quartet is probably my greatest booky pleasure. John Le Carré taught me that you can write spy novels and enjoy applying intelligence to the whole process. I still think he's a massively underrated literary craftsman simply because of the genre he writes in. I have always loved ?Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Saki and PG Wodehouse. As a child, Arthur Ransom's books lit up my life. And Richmal Crompton's William books.
Which are the titles or who are the authors you can pick up and read any time?
PG Wodehouse every time.
What are the books you would love to pass on to your children or any young person to read and treasure?
Dr Seuss. Man was genius. Enid Blyton. ?Despite her work being pilloried because it's "not PC", it was her work turned me into a lifelong reader. CS Lewis' Narnia. Tolkien. Every time I hear someone going on about Harry Potter I think of those fantasies as "the real thing". Alan Garner's Red Shift is ?a book of considerable brilliance I would recommend to any teenager.
Any other book-related observation you may have.
I got caught reading Alistair MacLean's The Way To Dusty Death during an English lesson when I was at secondary school. I hadn't even bothered to disguise the lurid cover and still the English master didn't tumble until the second lesson of the ?double period. When he did, a detention was delivered faster than you could say "At least it's more interesting than the blah you've been rambling on about for the last 45 minutes, mate".
I re-read it last year and was reduced to blind, towering fury. A book I had loved as a kid turned out to be a tottering pile of fatuous ordure of Augean proportions with a paper-thin plot, awful characterisation, wooden dialogue and generally just miserable writing.
Never go back to certain favourite books, I guess...
- As told to staff reporter


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