You 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? 

One word: triaging. Act like the books are dying bodies in a hospital. Assess from most severe to least severe, and work from there. 

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? 

Honestly, I think there should be even more meetings and more discussions, because the more you discuss, the more your opinion evolves. You also get a better sense of other people’s tastes that 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? 

I’m looking for the biggest genius in the world! 

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

I have an OnlyFans that is so private that no one can subscribe to it, where I’m on a 24-7 feed, and about eight hours of it is me just hunched up like a goblin with my legs in the air and my cat Miette on my pussy and a book in my hands. 

Where is your favourite place to read? 

It’s the corner of the couch, and it’s turning my body into a bundle of sticks. Actually, I’ve sustained several reading injuries throughout this process, and I’d like to make future Booker judges aware of that possibility. I’m currently experiencing severe tendonitis in my right hand from reading doorstopper novels on an iPad. 

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? 

The strangest place I found myself reading recently was a spot overlooking the Indialantic River in Melbourne, Florida, where I looked up at one point to see a huge, bright pink flamingo sweeping over the water. I thought that I was imagining it, but then it turned out that around 20 pink flamingos had been swept into that waterway by a hurricane a few years ago, and have lived there ever since. 

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

I come from a family of hyperlexic freaks, so I don’t really remember the book that made me fall in love with reading. I do remember thinking that there were books that were not like the other books, and often years later you would discover that they weren’t of the common run. For instance, a book like Tell Me a Mitzi turned out to have been written by the excellent poet and novelist Lore Segal.

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

It is The Blue Flower* by Penelope Fitzgerald. She won for Offshore butThe Blue Flower has the foremost place in my heart. It’s an example of what truly deep, truly mysterious historical writing can do. I swore it was longlisted, but even if it wasn’t, all the more reason to recommend it to people now! 

* Editor’s note: While Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker Prize with Offshore, and was shortlisted for The Bookshop, The Beginning of Spring and The Gate of Angels, her final novel The Blue Flower was not nominated for the prize.