David Hunt

What happens to fairies who mine nose gold when they don't find it because a kid is mining the gold for them?

And I've got another one coming out next year called My Real Friend, a story of a friendship between a boy and his imaginary friend told from the perspective of the imaginary friend who doesn't think he has quite enough skin in the relationship game.

I can beat going back past 2015.

I'm going back to the 19th century.

I've just re-read Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.

And I've read it three times now, I think, in my life.

And each time I've enjoyed it more.

And so my book of the year, and the wonderful thing about these things with long-dead authors who are out of copyright...

is I can get all of Charles Dickens for free on my Kindle and I'm re-reading the Dickens back catalogue at the moment.

A bit fuddy-duddy.

Yeah, a little overwritten.

Well, I mean, Dickens is often accused of overwriting, I think, because he spent his time writing either on a weekly or monthly basis and you didn't have time for the editor to come in and polish everything.

And I find, you know, that serial writing that he perfected to be amazing, that you can produce a novel that hangs together consistently and do it in a serial format with very limited involvement from a third party.

It's...

I'm a big Dickens fan.

Extraordinary stories.

It is my favourite Dickens.

I've reread Great Expectations, which I also love.

I refuse to reread Barnaby Rudge, which is really sort of Forrest Gump set in the 19th century and the only good thing to come out of Barnaby Rudge.

was that Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Raven because he wanted Gap the Raven in Barnaby Rudge that did nothing to have a more meaningful sort of symbolic role.