Stephanie Johnson is an Auckland writer. Her latest novel The Open World (Vintage, $37.99) is available now.
The book I love most is... Doesn’t this constantly change for most readers? Asked when I was four I would have replied Pookie The Rabbit With Wings by Ivy Wallace. At 20 – anything by Janet Frame. At 30 – anything by Angela Carter. At 40 – The Knowledge Of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh. At 45 - Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Most recently I’m in awe of Hokitika Town by Christchurch writer Charlotte Randall and Generosity by American Richard Powers. Geniuses! And I can’t go past anything by Jackie Kaye, Tim Gautreaux, Sarah Waters or Colum McCann.The book I’m reading right now is... The Country Life by Rachel Cusk. Very amusing in a silly, English way. I’m reading it on my kindle and it’s full of typos - eg every time the word ‘fact’ appears, it is instead ‘feet’. There are also many blank ‘pages’ or pages with only one line. This adds to the silliness of it, though it’s not intentional. I’d say Rachel Cusk is pretty pissed off. I loved her novel Arlington Park.
The book I want to read next is... The Children by Charlotte Wood. Her most recent, Animal People, is brilliant – funny, sad and wise in a cheeky, entertaining Aussie way. I’m reading them back to front – the central character of Animal People first appears in The Children.The book that changed me is...Sons And Lovers by DH Lawrence, which I read when I was 16. I had no idea until then that it was permissible to think like that about other people, or to think like that at all. It fundamentally changed my understanding of the world.
The book I wish I’d never read is... Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber, about her treatment of Sybil Dorsett for multiple personality disorder. I read it in my twenties and it gave me nightmares for months. I see a recent book – Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan - uncovers it as a hoax. Thank God for that.
This piece was first published in the Herald on Sunday, 20 May, 2012.
This piece was first published in the Herald on Sunday, 20 May, 2012.
Left - Stephanie Johnson