What are you reading right now?

Selected Letters of Catherine the Great, Oxford University Press.

Tell us a bit about it:

A vivid and visual picture of Russia and the familial, political and intimate life of this extraordinary woman.

What is your favourite book of all time?

Stoner by John Williams.

Tell us a bit about it:

The unremarkable, remarkable life of William Stoner, his marriage to Edith, affair with Katherine and his first love and life's passion - literature.

What book do you remember most from your childhood?

Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Tell us a bit about it:

Vivid images of feather beds, the pioneer lifestyle and a child's life.

Which of your books is battered from using over and over again?

Full and Plenty by Maura Laverty.

Tell us a bit about it:

The go to Irish cookery book for all classic foundations.

What is your favourite book by an international writer?

All the titles of the Pereine Publishers.

Tell us a bit about it:

A small London based publishing house which translates the best of European novellas - they are always brilliant, different genres, styles and places. They describe themselves as 'two hour stories for those bored with films'.

Which book do you feel depicts your own or another culture most vividly?

That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern.

Tell us a bit about it:

Another story of the ordinary. A depiction of rural life, the returned emigrant, the tyranny of a violent abusive parent and isolation.

Was there a book that really changed your mind about something?

The Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Tell us a bit about it:

The harsh life of a secret political prison in Morocco and how prisoners survive through imagination, religious devotion and devising means of communicating with each other.