David Hare

"Adapting this book about the Chinese agrarian revolution for Joint Stock Theatre in 1975 opened my mind to the possibilities of playwriting."

"I want photographs in my selection and this illustrated biography by her son contains Miller’s best. The war photos are unforgettable."

"The classic novel of a young man needing to leave the working class but wanting to take their values with him. By my university professor."

"Nearly all of Joan Didion contained in one volume, and therefore more of the late 20th century US than in any other writer."

"An object lesson in how to write a screenplay. Sparkling on top, profound below."

"She touches me like no other poet. Pretty rare that mental illness does help a writer, but for her, it was inseparable from her greatness."

"Seeing Paul Scofield and Irene Worth act in Peter Brook’s great production in 1962 led me to attempt my own in 1985 with Anthony Hopkins playing the king."

"Everything I want a novel to be, story-driven but marked with the great arc of its telling. You feel “Yes, this is what the 19th century must have been like.”"