Open Page with Peter Carey
What is your favourite music?
Once again I am pleading 'no favourites', although I am always moved and astonished by Gavin Bryars’s 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet'. No, I’m not a Christian. Also, generally speaking, I am forbidden to sing.
What is your favourite book?
The longer I live, the harder it is to have a favourite anything. I admire the work of Thomas Bernhardt, Jean Rhys, Iris Murdoch, Last night I began Conrad’s Victory for the first time. I return to Conrad again and again. This year I reread Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim (the fourth time), and was helpless with admiration once more. But I am not only in love with the dead. Recently, I have been feasting on the living: Hari Kunzru, Kamila Shamsie, Hisham Matar, a telephone book of invention.
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