Interview
What is your favorite local place to go for inspiration, relaxation, or peace and quiet? Why?
I love writing in cafés. I’ve written seven books and almost all of them were written in cafés. My two favorite places to write are the Lady Killigrew restaurant in the Montague Bookmill and Café Leonhard in Stuttgarter Platz, Berlin. The Bookmill has the better view but Leonhard has, or, rather, had, the better coffee (plus daily newspaper threaded through those pool cue-like newspaper holders). Alas, Leonhard recently fell victim to the Covid pandemic, its doors now shuttered for good.
Do you have a special library memory or story?
When I was in seventh grade, I was tiny for my age — no more than 4’ 10” — but considered myself a precocious reader. In my high school’s library, I found a copy of Conrad’s
Lord Jim and handed it to the librarian, who towered over me. “What made you choose this book?” she asked, eyeing me doubtfully. “It’s a Conrad I haven’t read,” I said. That wasn’t exactly a lie — in fact, I had read nothing by Conrad but associated his name with Literature. “Maybe you’d like to try another writer,” she said, cheerfully, handing me a book called
The Wanderer by Alain-Fournier. [Librarian note: this book was also published as
The Lost Domain.] It looked to me like juvenilia. “No thanks!” I snapped, indignantly. I should have taken her suggestion.
Lord Jim defeated me after twenty or so pages. Decades later I finally read
The Wanderer and loved it.