True readerly confessions

It’s not fashionable or cool or literary, but I cut my readerly/writerly teeth on the following authors as a young person (amongst other more ‘socially-acceptable’ classic ones).  I still love them all and at a drunken dinner party, would defend their goodness to the bitter end where you’d want to stab me with the butter knife*:

• Enid Blyton
• Agatha Christie
• Sidney Sheldon
• Dick Francis
• Robert Ludlum
• Jackie Collins
• John Irving
• Stephen King

I don’t think Stephen and John really belong in that list. While King is defo genre I think Irving is more literary – a blend of literary and commercial. His early stuff = sublime crossover reading.

* Yes, I’m a genteel hostess. Said dinner party would take place at my residence and there would be butter knives.