Shelf Awareness briefly interviews one of my favourite crime novelists, Reginald Hill, for their daily email, timed for the publication of his latest Dalziel and Pascoe mystery, The Price of Butcher’s Meat — which, tragically, is not yet listed as ‘on order’ or owned by any library in my community’s library loan system. It’s available now!
Turns out he’s enamored of literary classics written by George Eliot, Dickens, and Austen, as well as contemporary works by the likes of Terry Pratchett, Markus Zusak, and David Mitchell. Not a big fan of JK Rowling, whose first Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, paperback version) he bought for the cover, “‘but only because there was also 
on offer a version with a dull anonymous cover so that sensitive adults didn’t have to reveal they were reading a kids’ book on the train! That struck me as really sad, so I bought the original and flourished it for all to marvel at my childishness on the way home. Didn’t enjoy it all that much though, but who am I to disagree with x million readers across the whole age range?’”
I’ve lauded Hill before, here and here, oh, and here, at least.
(Photo from Fantastic Fiction.)
Filed under: books and reading, crime and crime fiction, quotes and excerpts | Tagged: author interview, crime fiction, mysteries, reginald hill, shelf awareness
