We speak to Scottish author Kirsty Logan about her favourite books, the authors who inspire her, and what she’s reading now, ahead of her appearance at Granite Noir.
The first book I remember reading:
The Dribblesome Teapots by Norman Hunter, a collection of quirky, weird, funny little fairytales set in the fantastical land of Inkrediblania.
What I loved about the book is that while plenty of bizarre and magical things happen in this land, there’s also an everyday, mundane aspect to the magic.
The title story is about the King of Inkrediblania getting annoyed because his teapots keep dribbling and making a mess of his tablecloth.
He offers half his kingdom to whoever can find him a teapot that does not dribble, so the palace magician casts a spell on all the teapots to dribble so that he doesn’t have to give away half of his kingdom.
I enjoy a big, glitzy, explosive sort of magic – but I particularly love an everyday sort of magic. It was the first book I really remember feeling absorbed in and excited by. I still have my copy and hope to read it to my toddler some day.
A book I recommend to everyone:
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is an incredible book. I’ve read it maybe three times now and every single time I’m blown away by the craft and artistry of the plotting.
Every single sentence is perfect, every single sentence is where it’s supposed to be. It’s got a double twist: halfway through the book you think you’ve found what the twist is, but then there’s another twist which throws everything you’ve just read into a different light.
Even though I’ve read the book before, I still love to reread it because I can see all the little hints and nudges that lead so perfectly to the twists. Even when you know how the magic trick is done, there’s still such joy in watching it unfold.
The best book I have read in this year:
Sick Houses by Leila Taylor. I loved Leila Taylor’s first book, Darkly, which was about her experience of goth culture as a Black woman, I was obsessed with that book, I think it’s incredible.
Her new book is all about houses; witch houses, murder houses, haunted houses, doll houses. She looks at real houses like Ed Gein’s house or the Unabomber’s cabin, houses from films such as the house from Psycho or the dollhouse from Hereditary, and houses in paintings like Edward Hopper’s. It’s so smart and every chapter is making me think.
The book I am most looking forward to:
I’m really looking forward to finishing my own book! I’m currently writing a novel and at the rate I’m going, with all the projects I have on right now and being the parent of a very active three- year-old, I think it will be finished in about 2030.
But I am absolutely loving writing it and I’m reading so many fascinating books as research. I’m reading about the Victorian Era, freak shows and hairy saints, eating insects, how food standards have changed over time, the different clothing fashions of mourning or power, the history of mining and sinkholes, graveyards and architecture. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into my novel again, and I look forward to all the great books I’m going to read as research.
A book I didn’t finish:
I am a massive book abandoner. I usually give books about 20 pages, and if it doesn’t grab me or I’m not in the mood for it I’ll just put it aside. Quite often I don’t get rid of the book, I put it back on my bookshelf and I’ll come back to it later.
I think if I force myself through a book when I’m not in the right headspace for it or I’m not in the right place in my life for it, then I will read it resentfully, which is never how a writer wants you to read their book. Whereas if I put it aside and come back to it when I’m in the mood for it then I will love and appreciate it in the way that it’s intended.
An author that has inspired me:
The first book that made me really want to write is Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch. It’s a book of retold lesbian fairytales and I read it at a very impressionable age of about 20, bought from an Oxfam bookshop in Stirling where I went to Uni.
It absolutely blew the top of my head off. One of the stories is about Snow White and rather than being woken by a kiss, Snow White is woken when her glass coffin is jolted and jerks the piece of apple out of her throat.
She wakes up and she decides to go back to the palace and start a relationship with her stepmother, to build bridges and to have a familial bond with her. I remember thinking: can you do that? Can you do that with a story?
I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on retold fairytales, looking mostly at that book because I thought it was incredible. I still love Emma Donoghue, I think she’s a genius.
The book I am reading now:
As well as the Leila Taylor book, I am also rereading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein which I’ve already listened to as an audiobook and I loved it so much that I went and bought a physical copy so that I could read it again. That is my before bed book, but I am constantly exhausted so I manage to read about two pages before I fall asleep. It gives me the perfect bit of brain food to send me off to have strange and hopefully profound dreams, although sometimes they do get quite dark.
I’m also reading And Then? And Then? What Else? by Daniel Handler, who you may know as Lemony Snickett who wrote the Unfortunate Events series. It’s a book of fascinating essays about a writer’s journey, through early inspirations, influences, to how his unique brain chemistry influences his work and I’m really enjoying it.
Kirsty Logan will appear at Granite Noir’s Myth, Murder and Monstrosity event, alongside Sarah Maria Griffin and Elle Nash on 22 February.
Granite Noir will take place in venues across Aberdeen Thursday 20 – Sunday 23 February. For tickets and full programme information visit aberdeenperformingarts.com/granite-noir/
Read more of The Good Books here.
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The post The Good Books, Kirsty Logan: ‘I am rereading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, it’s the perfect brain food’ appeared first on Scottish Field.