Judging the Betty Trask Prize

On Judging the Betty Trask Prize

Imagine this. An email, late one winter afternoon, asks if you’d be happy to receive two large boxfuls of brand new debut novels, and if you’d read them in return for what, on any view, would be described as a fair fee. Finding no reason to refuse (who would?) you accept. The deliveries arrive and…

My Vintage Classics Longlist

To mark the forthcoming 10th anniversary of the relaunch of Vintage Classics, Vintage invited each of its authors to select their 5 favourite books from the catalogue.  The wonderful promise made in return was: ‘Whenever you press your copy into a friend’s hands or find it has wandered off your shelf onto someone else’s, let…