My earliest reading memory
Reading On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan, aged five or so, sitting on the floor of the bedroom I shared with my brother – who, in my memory, was sitting on the carpet next to me.
My favourite book growing up
I had a collection of fairytales in a big yellow hardback, which I was totally entranced by from around the age of seven to 10. I’ll never forget the feeling of despair on turning the page and discovering that the Little Mermaid had become foam on the surface of the water; it was a very early lesson in the helplessness of the reader in the face of a story’s destiny. In particular, though, I loved a Scottish fairytale called The Black Bull of Norroway, which I think, in many ways, has been under the surface of everything I’ve ever written.
The book that changed me as a teenager
Collected Plays by Federico García Lorca, which I studied for GCSE drama and led me to seek out his poetry. It would be impossible for me to think about my adolescent relationship to reading, and my relationship as an adult to language, without Lorca. I remember these lines from City That Does Not Sleep hitting me like a bolt of lightning: “… and the man who rushes out with his / spirit broken will meet on the street corner / the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath / the tender protest of the stars”.
The writer who changed my mind
Frank O’Hara, which I know is one of the most predictable answers a poet can give, but for good reason. All of the poetry I’d studied up to the point of discovering him felt deeply serious, almost something not to be touched. Then you read O’Hara and it’s like: OK, life!
The book that made me want to be a writer
I really don’t think this is something that happened to me. I have just written for as long as I can remember and, at a certain point as an adult, I realised that normal living people can write books if they want to, if they’re lucky, and that maybe I would like to try to do that. To answer a slightly different question, Percival Everett’s astonishing The Trees was the book that made me feel I might be able to write a novel.
The book I reread
Anne Carson’s Glass and God, in particular The Glass Essay. It’s basically perfect – my go-to text for resetting my brain and being reminded, within the space of a page, about the capacities of writing.
The book I could never read again
JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series was a huge part of my childhood, but it’s art that’s firmly not to be separated from artist, in this case.
The book I discovered later in life
I don’t think I read Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook until I was in my 30s – but really, any time is the perfect time to discover this novel.
The book I am currently reading
A proof of Compensation by Augustine Cerf, which so far is brilliant, and My Garden (Book) by Jamaica Kincaid, which I often pick up and read a page or two of between other things. I’m also rereading Doom Painting by AK Blakemore, out in September. It’s a phenomenal achievement – I don’t know how she did it.
My comfort read
The poetry collection Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo, who died in 2023. I keep this book on the shelf directly above my desk and when the loss of him feels particularly impossible, I take it down, read a poem and remember he’s there on the page.
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry is published by Granta. It won the 2026 Waterstones debut fiction prize and is longlisted for the Booker prize. To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com
