John Connolly

It used to be 36% of boys who hadn't read a book.

It's gone down to 30%.

But getting young men to read and to read fiction especially remains quite difficult.

And I know there's a campaign in Irish bookstores to get people reading more fiction by women.

And I think largely we've addressed that imbalance that was there for a very long time.

If you look at the bestseller list now and publishing, women are the dominant force.

And I think what we need to worry about is getting young male readers in.

And we'll worry about what they're reading a little bit later, but just to get them reading fiction.

No, I think they're just different ways of engaging with a book, I think.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

And actually, there's something lovely about it, particularly memoir.

To read somebody describing their lives in the form of a book, I think it's quite delightful.

And it taps into something very atavistic in us.

I think those of us who are read to as children

There's some element of that when we listen to something on the radio or listen to an audio book.

I think it goes back to something very deep and profound in us.

If the voice isn't good or right... Oh, you don't want someone from Birmingham reading a book to you.

No, that's not going to go.

Not that there's anything wrong with people from Birmingham, he added.

I think the books are, generally what happens with writers is they die.