My life in books: Every amazing or even enjoyable book I’ve read made me want to be a writer
Derek Landy: 'Art by humans actually matters. That’s why replicated facsimiles of art by AI will never resonate.' Picture: Bríd O’Donovan
Derek Landy is the author of the bestselling series and has written numerous comic book series for .
Right now I’m making my way through the series by James SA Corey, by Keith Rosson, by Eliza Clark, and by Hailey Piper. Also X-Men.
If I don’t finish a book it’s always because the writing isn’t for me. That can mean either it isn’t good enough, or it just isn’t in a style I can appreciate.
But the very fact that the book exists is a testament to the writer, so for that alone they deserve my discretion.
Every amazing, or even merely enjoyable, book I’ve ever read made me want to become a writer, so let’s lay the blame at the series, and the , and James Herbert’s . My foundational tomes are glorious and pulpy.
A turn of phrase by Elmore Leonard, or a casual insight by Hunter S Thompson, or a throwaway description by Stephen King, can all make me happy.
The title that springs to mind is the graphic novel series . There is the sudden death of a main character in that series that shocked me, that made me stop and sit there for a minute, trying to process what it meant.
More books by humans, and less by machines. One of the reasons we read is to search for answers to the doubts and fears and anxieties that riddle us.
We’re looking for guidance through the words of someone who has lived through and survived what were going through. That’s why art by humans actually matters.
That’s why replicated facsimiles of art by AI will never resonate.
, , , … but those are all adaptations of good books. , by Peter Benchley, is not what you might call the greatest book ever written, but that movie is sheer brilliance.
So if we’re talking about movies that take a book and improve on it, then wins, hands down.
I am very quick to buy online if I can’t find a particular book on a shelf, but nothing results in an armful of books like well-curated bookshop.
My local shops are an Eason and a Dubray, but when I was a kid it was a secondhand bookshop in Swords that is now sadly gone.
I picked up so many battered old horror paperbacks from that place that I can legitimately say it shaped the person I am today.
Unrestrained, beautiful chaos. My shelves follow a rough hierarchical system with Joe R Lansdale at the top, flowing down to Joe Hill, Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham Jones, Joe Abercrombie, Stephen King, and then it all spreads outwards, connecting to other bookcases around the house.
The downside is that it can mean some frustrating searches for a book I know I have, but the upside is that a search for one book will remind me of all these others.
Hap Collins, from Joe R Lansdale’s books, about two smart-mouthed, middle-aged amateur detectives in Texas.
Hap is a tough guy examining his own toughness, and his relationship with his gay, black, twice-as-tough best friend is a wonderful tonic to the comic idiocy of the world around them.
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