You will have read over 100 books in seven months as a Booker Prize judge. How have you approached this challenge, and what are your tips for people who want to find more time for reading but may struggle to fit it around their busy schedules?  

My approach has been always to carry a book with me in my bag. It’s amazing how much time in the day you spend just hanging around, buying a cup of coffee you didn’t really want… It’s more fun if you fill it with reading. 

Reading is a mostly solitary experience, but judging is a shared one. How does discussing a book with other people change the reading experience, or even your opinion of a book?  

It has been hugely interesting (and fun) to hear the other judges’ reactions. Sometimes you find yourself disagreeing, sometimes it opens your eyes to a book in a new way. 

What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?  

There are all kinds of different things, and you don’t find them all in a single book. That goes from wit and humour to learning how it might feel to be someone who is not you! For me the bottom line is ‘would I think it would be worthwhile reading this book more than once?’ 

What does your day-to-day reading routine look like as a Booker Prize judge? 

I don’t have a routine, I’m afraid. I just take any opportunity that is offered. My best time though was when I had got behind on the schedule and I just checked myself into a hotel and read all day (with a quick break for lunch and a trip to the bar – with book! – at 6pm). 

Where is your favourite place to read?  

Anywhere that is not standing up! At home I generally retreat to my study, lie on the sofa and try to forget about everything else (not always successfully). 

Do you ever find yourself reading in unusual places to keep up with the prize schedule? What’s the strangest place you’ve found yourself reading recently?  

I was caught surreptitiously reading on the swing in the park, while supervising the grandchildren. 

What book made you fall in love with reading as a child? How and why did it capture your imagination?   

I don’t think I ever ‘fell in love’ with reading. And I don’t feel ‘in love’ with it now. Reading has always been much more embedded in my life than that (as necessary as eating and sleeping… and most of us aren’t ‘in love’ with sleeping). What books do I remember from all those years ago? Any number… Beatrix Potter’s Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit, Jane Eyre and the Guinness Book of Records

What’s your all-time favourite Booker-nominated book and what makes it so special? Who would you recommend it to?        

There are loads. The first time I remember actually setting out to buy the winner was in 1984. It was Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac. There was quite a lot of controversy about it (what’s new?). But for me it was the kind of understated, wonderfully gnawing woman’s humour that I hadn’t really met before.