Here are the ten writers I most admire (at the moment, because any time I read a good book the author automatically becomes my new best favourite).
- Hilary Mantel - for her humane, tender, all encompassing characterisation.
- Tim Winton -- for prose to plunge into; rounded, salty characters and a sprinkling of magic realism that wrong-foots and amazes me.
- Helen Dunmore - for blurring the boundaries between poetry and fiction.
- Geoff Dyer - for never, ever being obvious about anything; an oblique, bone dry, stylist.
- Hugo Williams - for making the art of understatement all his own; for never succumbing to any kind of literary compromise.
- Pat Barker - for her first world war trilogy: Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road perfectly capture the pity of war; no one else can hold a candle to her.
- Miriam Toews-- for being sparky, witty and original.
- Lorrie Moore - for her unflinching, funny chronicles of the shortcomings of the human heart.
- Sarah Waters - for being a plotting supremo, her books are masterpieces of construction: smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, prestidigitation!
- Georgette Heyer - because flu wouldn't be survivable without her. These Old Shades? Bring it on...
