Newcastle University

So when do you read, then? Is there a particular time of day, or a particular ...

I like a read with my morning cup of tea, when I’m watching local news and things like that. And I love to read before I go to sleep. I try to stay up […] and read because I have been known to fall asleep with a book on my pillow, so I try to sort of sit up and read, and then go bed. But any chance I get during the day. I’m not a great telly watcher, I much prefer to read a book.

What is it that you think a book gives you that the telly doesn’t?

No adverts for a start. [laughter]. I can stop when I want and go and do things. But I just disappear into a world that I don’t find the television gives me, because the television, I get distracted by other things and think, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have cast Robson Green as the character in the Val McDermid books, or whatever. I’ve got my own idea of what they look like.

Yes.

So I quite like having my idea of a character and ... If you read a book by an author who does a series with the same kind characters you feel over the books you get to know them, and that’s your relationship with them. Which, with the telly, it’s generating different needs: the instant hit of a one-hour programme with three adverts. And I like to develop that over the books. So it’s more satisfying for me.