There’s a book that I think people are fed up of hearing me talk about because I mention it all the time and it’s really bleak. It’s called In the Cut. It’s a New York novel by Susanna Moore and I read it every six months. I read it for the first time about four years ago and I have maybe three or four editions of it, including a first edition which my boss got me for my birthday. I’m obsessed with it for different reasons but mainly because I read a lot of unpublished work that I don’t necessarily end up working with, and it can be hard to remember what you’re looking for. This book helps reset the bar; it’s the quality of the writing and how ruthless Moore is with her sentences. I recommend it to everyone and I keep insisting that they reissue it here with a new introduction; I have no professional involvement or vested interest in it, I just think it should be read more widely. There was also a time I was reading The Sound and the Fury a lot, to remind myself what ‘good writing’ is. Then there’s a few books I have several different editions of, including Beloved and The Virgin Suicides.