Roddy Doyle's Reading List

"a hundred pages in — I'm rightly anxious but laughing."

""Hope in the Dark," by Rebecca Solnit, for a bit of well thought-out optimism last thing at night."

"The stories are brilliant, full of surprises."

"Maggie O'Farrell has constructed a glorious novel out of the name, and the extraordinary final pages remind us of a huge thing that we're missing right now: live performance."

"I started to read it, and I hadn't; it was brand-new and immediately great. Is there a better storyteller?"

"Reading Eula Biss's "On Immunity," I learned that milkmaids in 18th-century England bore none of the scars of smallpox on their faces"

"Read Bram Stoker's "Dracula," then read "This Hostel Life," by Melatu Uche Okorie. You've just read two fine examples of Irish literature."

"Read Bram Stoker's "Dracula," then read "This Hostel Life," by Melatu Uche Okorie. You've just read two fine examples of Irish literature."

"I read Flann O'Brien's "At Swim-Two-Birds" every couple of years. The really great books change as we get older."