Because, as we know, almost anything can be read into any book if you are determined enough. This will be especially impressed on anyone who has written fantastic fiction. He will find reviewers, both favourable and hostile, reading into his stories all manner of allegorical meanings which he never intended. (Some of the allegories thus imposed on my own books have been so ingenious and interesting that I often wish I had thought of them myself.)
I teach 18- to 21-year-olds - the 'Harry Potter' generation. They grew up as voracious readers, reading books in this exploding genre. But at some point, I would love for them to give Umberto Eco or A.S. Byatt a try. I hope 'A Discovery of Witches' will serve as a kind of stepping-stone.
It does not matter what film you're making. If you're young and there's romance in the movie, it's compared to 'Twilight'.
Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.
'Finnegans Wake,' 'Alice and Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' live on my bedside table back home in London.
I have read only the first 'Harry Potter' book. I thought it excellent, perhaps the best thing written for older children since The Hobbit. I wish the books had been around when my kids were the right age for them.
Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' just rocked my world in the late '80s and early '90s. I couldn't read them fast enough.
Lord of the Rings, I think, is far and away the most brilliantly done stuff.
To me, steampunk and urban fantasy are naturally hinged together. And I think that's because I love the early gothic Victorian literature, and both things spring from that movement.
American Gods is about 200,000 words long, and I'm sure there are words that are simply in there 'cause I like them. I know I couldn't justify each and every one of them.
I had auditioned for 'The Vampire Diaries' years ago before 'The Originals' happened, so I was familiar with that mythology.
I've been on 'Mastermind' - I tied for first place and then lost on the number of passes. My subject was the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Philip Pullman. If I did it again, I'd choose Shakespearian tragedies.
When I got the script for 'Eclipse,' I thought it was a damn good story.
I've never seen 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'
I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction.
Then there was Clark Ashton Smith, who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer, but his imagination was wonderful.
When I was a lecturer at UC Berkeley, I wrote a book about monsters.
I love Chris Crutcher, Sara Zarr, Lois Lowry, Elizabeth Scott, Madeleine L'Engle, Gordon Korman, Michelle Magorian, Heather Bouwman.
My husband and I like to reminisce about how, when we were 9, we read straight through L. Frank Baum's 'Oz' series, books filled with wizards and witches. And you know what those subversive tales taught us? That we loved to read!
I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature... Never again another seven-volume saga.
It seems no matter what I read I think 'this is not Harry Potter.'
'Harry Potter' really harnessed the imagination of so many young-adult minds, and it's the same with the 'Divergent' series.
I actually have a young readers' series that I wanna do, kind of in the same lane as a Harry Potter or Narnia or Twilight. I want to write stuff like that.
In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road.
There is a huge fan base; they're very knowledgeable and very loyal. I was astonished - before I started working on the series, I didn't know anything about 'Game of Thrones.' I hadn't heard of the books.
