I mainly read histories and biographies, but I'm also a big fan of Graham Swift and Thomas Hardy.
More and more I'm finding that I'm reading history, I'm reading biography, I'm reading autobiography for a sense of people who've been able to provide leadership. I don't read leadership books anymore.
I enjoy reading biographies because I want to know about the people who messed up the world.
I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler.
I do read a lot of autobiographies and biographies but from people who are not in my field - older women, older artists, Miles Davis.
I read Gloria Swanson's autobiography just because I wanted to know what it was like in the time.
As a child, I read science fiction, but from the very beginnings of my reading for pleasure, I read a lot of non-fictional history, particularly historical biography.
At university, I had been obsessed with reading about the lives of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and I was steeped in the crazy poets, and I came to view my early subjects through that prism.
My reading is always about musical biographies. I have an innate interest and passion for that.
I only read biographies, metaphysics and psychology. I can dream up my own fiction.
