Chris Womersley

And so it's sort of partly nature writing, partly sort of history, partly the pleasure of swimming, which I can certainly relate to, and partly also sort of an environmental book as well about obviously the degradation that some of these waterways have experienced since the Industrial Revolution.

So, yeah, that was a great book, actually.

I do like books that kind of have a bit of grit to them, I suppose.

I'm not a cerebral reader, I guess, if that makes any sense.

High modernism doesn't necessarily appeal to me a great deal because I can't sort of feel it in my bones, I guess.

Which is why I always sort of return a lot to 19th century literature, not only in the sense of books written in the 19th century, but books that kind of carry on, I guess, that tradition.