"Huge, magical, realist epic about Indian Independence through the eyes of a child born on the stroke of midnight. Funny, dense, flowery, the story goes on huge tangents, but I love this crazy novel, which somehow manages to depict and sum up the essence of the incredible vast country of India. A real education for me as someone who grew up in London, who had never been to India while growing up. This book helped me better understand what my parents had been through, where they came from before they chose to travel across the world to settle in the the U.K., where I was born."

"The first volume in the Neapolitan quartet, this one changes in the mind’s eye if you’re pulled, as I am, helplessly through the subsequent books, with its primal scenes from early childhood deepening throughout. Is there a better portrait of friendship in literature than the story of Elena Greco, the narrator, and her brilliant friend, Lila Cerullo? Elena escapes the old neighborhood, and the poverty of postwar Naples, through education, but Lila remains the incandescent figure. The tormented power of their relationship never flags, through “The Story of a New Name,” “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” and the devastating “The Story of a Lost Child.” I hear the TV series is good. The books are a universe."

"I was doing an assistant editor job in Prague for three months, and I brought with me about fifteen Bergman DVDs. Bizarrely, I was working on Shanghai Knights with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson during the day and coming home to Persona in the evening. It was not necessarily good for my state of mind, but it was an amazing cinematic education. It’s virtually impossible to choose a favorite from his films, so I’ll choose two. I do think, though, that Cries and Whispers sums up what it means to be human—the moment when Agnes screams out in agony to her sisters as they stand by her deathbed “Can anyone help me?” and of course they can’t, or they won’t. Holy fuck."