Chris Brookmyre

This isn't the last time that I'm going to read it.

I like a clean secondhand book.

I used to be a secondhand bookseller.

And also, you know, like many people, I grew up in a house that didn't have books, but we had the library.

And every book in the library has been through many hands.

And then I sort of graduated to Bobby's Bookshop, where you bought books that were on the carousel, and you could bring back a book and get a new one.

And then

So I think that idea of reading series out of order, finding books that you didn't know you wanted, which you do in libraries and bookshops and firsthand bookshops as well.

But also just when you really when you don't have much money, sometimes you can pick up a book for 30 pence still today.

Yeah, I mean, I'm barely obsessive about neatness and I love the crispness of a new book.

But because of researching and writing a lot of historical fiction with my wife, it's really quite exciting if you find something that's been out of print for 70 years and you get this thing and it's not going to be crisp and you wonder what its story is and the way it might smell.

The way it might smell is terrible.

I actually put a book...

that I got recently.

It was a book published, I think, in the 30s.

It was about nightclubs in the 20s.

And I put it in the freezer to try and kill off whatever spores might be emanating from this novel in case there was some ancient disease that was about to resurrect and inflict upon us all.

It smelled dangerous.

Oh.

And I thought, I'm going to do the one thing that should kill all the germs, which is put it in the freezer for 24 hours.