My earliest reading memory is sitting with my mother at the kitchen table, looking at a comic called Sparky. Her finger was under a word in one of the speech bubbles, and I recognised it, and the next one, and the next. I was up and running.
Reading Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds at 16 was extraordinary; seeing the Dublin accent on paper was an experience that encouraged laughter as it reflected my daily life.
EL Doctorow's Ragtime inspired me to write; its blend of fictional characters and historical figures showed me writing's possibilities, leading me to think, 'I could do that.'
Great Expectations improves and darkens with age; during my third reading, I realized I was no longer Pip but Joe, making the line 'What larks, Pip' heartbreaking.
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