Writers on Reading: Michael Brooks

http://www.michaelbrooks.org/

We haven't had many non-fiction authors on the blog so far, but if we're going to start somewhere we couldn't be happier than starting with the amazing Michael Brooks.

As well as being an author of 4 Scientific and 1 non-fiction books, Michael is also a broadcaster and journalist, having written for an astounding number of magazines, newspapers and journals (including The New Scientist who also employ him as a consultant). When you read an author with a PhD in Quantum Physics you may worry that his writing will be way over your head, but Michael's style is friendly and informative, having being described as 'appealingly child-like' by one reviewer, he is an expert at bringing esoteric and strange scientific discoveries to the public in an entertaining and engaging way. 

What is the first book you remember reading?
 A Shoot! football annual. Does that count? You’ve got to start somewhere.

What effect does being an author have on you as a reader? 
I can’t read without analysing - sometimes the writer achieves something so extraordinary with a sentence or paragraph that I pause and try to work out what made it so special. That means I sometimes lose the flow a bit. I also think I might have an enhanced appreciation of just how much effort goes into creating what seems to be effortless prose.

Are there any books you can read again and again? 
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong and Bruce Chatwin’s On The Black Hill. Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I’ve done that a few times. Though I’ve never finished his 100 Years of Solitude and I’ve started it three times now!

Are there any genres that you wouldn’t choose to read?
I don’t know that it’s a choice, but I rarely read science fiction or fantasy. I think it’s because I find tales from the here and now (or the past, at least) far more compelling, in terms of getting insight into what it means to be human (and that’s what reading is all about in the end, isn’t it?) Friends tell me I’m missing out, though, so I’m planning to delve into some Ursula K Le Guin very soon, and I’ve just taken Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale out of my local library. Maybe I’ll convert...

What is the current book on your nightstand/coffee table?
At the top of the pile is My Mother Was An Upright Piano, a book of flash fiction stories by Tania Hershman. But there is a pile; I’ve just finished Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda and The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, for example, and they’re both about to be re-read at the next opportunity. 100 Years of Solitude is there too, but I don’t fancy its chances much...