What made you fall in love with books – and how did it happen?
Loving reading is as natural as walking. I can't remember learning to read. I was sort of an only child, and I felt lonely at night. I would crawl into my father's bed and lie with my head on his shoulder. He loved reading Louis L'Amour and James Hadley Chase and Hammond Innes and I grew up to the smell of those cheap paperbacks and Pall Mall Plain.
What’s your favourite line from a book?
I can't say forever that this is my favourite line, but I love it a lot at the moment, because it keeps coming back to me in funny little ways. From The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald – it's right at the beginning of the book and it runs like a silver thread right till the end. It's beautiful:
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”