"""I got my first guitar when I was seven; actually, it was a ukulele, but at the time it was big enough to be a full-size guitar. When I was nine I got a three-quarter size nylon, six-string guitar and with it I had a little beginner’s guide guitar book, which I still have. I went through that and within ten minutes I could play E minor, A7 - you know, some simple chords. “Then I was at a car boot sale and we found an Elvis chord book and ‘Love Me Tender’ was in it. I was familiar with it, but it was the first song that I fully learned and the first song that I knew the melody well enough to be able to figure out if I was playing the guitar chords wrong or right. “It was a real catalyst of a song for making me use my ear; in terms of working out what I was actually hearing and then sussing out chord shapes to go along with the melody. I still love playing the song, just very softly. And I still have the Elvis book but it all fell apart, so it’s in a ring-binder now with plastic sleeves that you’d get at school."

"I don’t remember the first time I read Goodbye to All That, but I do know that a little part of me thinks of it whenever I turn on the air conditioner. Didion is a big picture writer and a vital writer (On Self-Respect is required reading for any woman, Sentimental Journeys for any person). She’s a national treasure, but for me it’s the image of her taking a messy bite of a peach on the sidewalk that feels like the Didion I know."

"I like Woody Allen. Crime and Misdemeanors I liked a lot. I think it’s just wonderful. I also enjoy many of those — I like Hannah and Her Sisters, and Husbands and Wives; I like Broadway Danny Rose. This morning I was watching Love and Death, with Diane Keaton which I like a lot. But Crimes and Misdemeanors is maybe the best one of those."