Author Denis Cronin talks all things bookish in the companion series to our popular podcast
A book from your early days?
I was fifteen when I received a present from my uncle of James Michener’s Hawaii and I thought he was the most amazing writer ever. I still do to this day. I was in boarding school at the time and not doing very well academically but every night I read Michener and thought he was writing for me. A fabulous storyteller and gifted wordsmith.
Dog ears or book marks?
Most definitely book marks. I hate marking a book and love to keep it undamaged as someone else will surely be reading it.
A quote you can say by heart?
‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ from Erich Segal’s Love Story. I read it when I was sixteen and I believed it for years. As I got older and fell in love I realised that Segal had got it terribly wrong, and that love is about knowing when is the right time to say sorry.
Do you lend without expecting a book returned?
Always!
A book you return to over the years?
I’ve read some amazing books over the years but I’ve never reread any book—except perhaps when I didn’t realise I’d read a book previously!
A book that taught you something important?
Although I was not very clever in school I won a prize in my Religion class (though I subsequently gave up on the idea of god or afterlife). The prize was a book about Martin Luther King. I was in my teens and I had very little idea at the time of what was going on outside my little bubble and it was a complete eye-opener. It awoke in me a hunger to better understand the bigger picture and the injustices of race.
A book that makes you laugh?
I was twenty when I got my hands on a copy of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. I was taking part in evening classes at the time and I used to laugh out loud reading it on my way home on the number 8 bus. Absolutely hilarious.
One of your own books you would save?
Of Land and Greed. When I wrote it I didn’t realise how much the issue of land meant to so many people.
You can save one non-book item: what is it?
That would be my guitar, I love jamming with my brother and friends and I love music sessions. I can get lost in another world.
