(From The New York Times, 12/24; via Pam Green.)
The playwright and author of the memoir “The Blue Touch Paper” was once the literary manager of the Royal Court Theater: “I was in charge of reading over a thousand plays a year. I can never read a play again
What books are currently on your night stand?
“Stalin’s Englishman,” by Andrew Lownie; “The Little Red Chairs,” by Edna O’Brien; “All That I Am,” by Anna Funder; “Forensics,” by Val McDermid.
What’s the best book you’ve read so far this year?
“Dirty Snow,” by Georges Simenon.
Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?
I love what Kipling said: “There can be neither first nor last in the kingdom — for it is not a republic — of letters.” However, I will always want to hear from Joan Didion, Philip Roth, Wallace Shawn, Janet Malcolm, Jonathan Franzen and Zoë Heller. I buy everything they write.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/books/review/david-hare-by-the-book.html?_r=0