The US author on his early love of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the genius of Judy Blume, and finding perfection in Agatha Christie and Gustave FlaubertMy earliest reading memory I recall lying in the bath, age seven or eight, reading the final page of Judy Blume’s Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself, then turning to the novel’s opening and beginning again. Memory is untrustworthy, but Blume is a genius who has that effect on her reader.My favourite book growing up We’re always growing up; we’re always choosing a new favourite. For me, once, this was Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy. Later I’d have said JD Salinger’s Nine Stories. Later, still, John Cheever’s Collected Stories, Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, my favourite changing as I did. Maybe I’m finally old enough to understand that favourite is impossible to designate. Or maybe I’d say my current favourite is Don DeLillo’s Underworld. Continue reading...