【Little Boots】2012.7.13.接受Their Library的采访

1.What is your favourite book and why?
I really love a new(ish) author called Simon Van Booy, his language is so beautiful and stories are genuinely romantic.
2.What other authors do you like?
So many… Jonathan Franzen, Raymond Carver, Kaszuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami, Truman Campote, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Angela Carter, Martin Amis, JG Ballard… I also like classic Russian writers like Chekov and Dostoyevsky and I find poetry by poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton really useful for lyric ideas. I’ve also recently started reading more factual music books, I loved Simon Reynolds’ ‘Energy Flash’ and am now reading up on the early days of disco.
3.What draws you to certain books?
I think I’m often drawn to language as I find it inspirational when writing lyrics. I like great characters, I’m not really one for anything too depressing.
4.Have you ever discovered a real lost classic? What is it and why?
Honestly I don’t think I have I’m afraid…

5.Do your literary influences have a direct impact on your songwriting?
Definitely, the first thing I do when I need some lyrics is leaf through poetry books and short stories and see what stands out from a page. If I’m going to a writing session abroad I always take a stack of books for inspiration.
6.What are you reading at the moment?
I just finished Jonathan Franzen’s latest book ‘Freedom’ and I’m about to start ‘The Magician’ by Maugham as I’ve been meaning to read it for ages.
7.What is the first book you remember reading as a child?
I remember reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ when I was probably a bit too young for it… I read a lot of ‘Anne of Green Gables’ and ‘Mallory Towers’ before discovering Point Horror then that kind of took over.
8.Did you make good use of your library card as a child / teenager?
Oh my god I was the biggest library geek, I was there so much I won a prize for reading the most books in town! Probably shouldn’t admit to that.
9.Have you ever found a book that you simply couldn’t finish?
I have tried to read Proust several times and can never get very far, I can tell its brilliant but its always so heavy… on my to do list.
10.Do you read book reviews?
No hardly ever, I think whether you connect with a book is something quite personal so I wouldn’t really trust reviews I mainly rely on recommendations from friends.

11.Would you ever re-read the same book?
Probably not unless I’d completely forgotten what happened or needed to do for some kind of research. I have gone back to ‘Energy Flash’ a few times to look things up and I keep meaning to ‘Adorno’ but its not exactly light reading so I haven’t got there yet. I’m thinking about going back to ‘Kill Your Friends’ to see if the lead character really is the head of my record label…
12.Have you ever identified with a character in a book? Which one and why?
I don’t think there’s anyone female who read the Twilight trilogy without dreaming they were ‘Bella Swan’.
13.Do you read one book at a time or more than one?
Hardly ever, I like to get submerged in one story. I guess if I was reading a factual book I might have a fiction on the go at the same time.
14.Is there an author / poet you would like to collaborate with?
I was actually vaguely talking about doing a long music video/ short film and where we were hoping Simon Van Booy would write some of the script… unfortunately the idea didn’t work out but I’d love to something like that in future, or I think it would be interesting to take someone else’s words and set them to music kind of like Elton John did with Bernie Taupin.