Ian Francis: Books for our Strange World

I’m an artist, I make paintings. Sometimes I mime the act of painting at the same time when I’m explaining it to them, I’m not really sure why.

The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by Stefan Zweig, a gift from a friend – we swap books, it’s always interesting for finding new perspectives and new authors.

The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson, which I think my parents subtly picked up because I was not the best at sleeping, and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

I wanted to be a marine biologist for a while (maybe when I was about 8? Not sure), then I wanted to be an artist. Looking back now, my parents hid their disappointment well.

I think I’d be happy that I was an artist, although I’d have preferred it if I did fantasy or sci fi art. I think school aged me would mainly be happy to find out that I still played computer games.

Suddenly a Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret. I love short stories and I found this collection so innovative, the range of tragedy and comedy in the vignettes he creates are a great inspiration to me now and would have been fantastic to have read back then.

No, I vary – sometimes I like reading in bed in the morning or at night, sometimes I read in the middle of the day if I’m struggling with work as it helps refocus my mind, and I love reading when I’m travelling. I also like listening to audiobooks while I work, it’s strange because I can concentrate on what I’m listening to, but I find it incredibly hard to talk when I’m painting.

Possibly A Crack-Up at the Race Riots by Harmony Korine, it’s a long time since I read it (I lent it to someone and it never came back) and I’m not sure what I’d think of it now, but at the time the surreal/fragmented structure of it really stuck with me.

After Dark by Haruki Murakami, because my girlfriend and I were both reading it when we met.

Probably Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, although I’m not sure how successful I’ve been with getting people to read it. Actually that’s not true, I am sure that I’ve failed to get anyone to read it.

Fiction, although recently I really liked The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker – however strange our world is now, I do fundamentally believe that overall things are getting better, and personally if I could choose to live in any point of human history so far I’d choose now. His book is a far more interesting, eloquent and well researched argument for this than I could ever make.

Yes! I think for me it’s important because I find it easy to get caught in a cycle of skim reading the same websites, it’s good to invest more time into something. I spend so much time looking at images and working in a visual medium, it’s great to take a break from that with a book.

Probably 10:04 by Ben Lerner, I really enjoyed the way the author played with the nature of truth and reality, although Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle would be a close second. I found them both very compelling in different ways.

Real books at the moment, although I’ve never used an e-reader (is that what they’re called? It seems wrong when I write it down). I’m actually slightly tempted to buy one at the moment, I’ve been thinking about moving house, and the boxes of books could be a problem.

I’m terrible for trying to force my opinions on to people, it’s something I try to stop myself doing, so I don’t think I should be granted the power to create laws.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – I found it a real struggle to read at first, but I’m glad I stuck with it. I’ve gone back to read it again several times and listened to the audiobook, there’s just so much in there I wouldn’t know how to start describing it.

In no particular order: Selected Stories by Alice Munro, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell, The Boat by Nam Le, 10th of December by George Saunders, Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima, Rowing to Eden by Amy Bloom, The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, Underworld by Don DeLillo, The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami.

Probably The Winds of Winter, the next book by George R. R. Martin, and hopefully Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, I’m sure I have it here somewhere but I can’t find my copy of it at the moment.

It would be awful, some glib title like “You can never fail if you never try”, hopefully I’ll never write one!