The Good Books, Andrew O’Hagan: ‘When I was eight I discovered Peter Pan – and was thunderstruck’

The Booker Prize nominated author on becoming engrossed in the King James Bible as a child, why he always recommends The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and his perfect seafront spot in Largs for reading.

The first book I remember reading:

When I was very small I used to read the King James Bible like it was a novel. I knew all the characters, and I worried about their fates and their motivations. For a 1970s kid on the west coast of Scotland, it was like soap opera for insomniacs. I loved it. Then I’d watch all the Bible films at Easter. When I was about eight, though, I discovered Peter Pan — and I was thunderstruck. Here was a dramatic story set in a world of ordinary people like me and my mum. And it felt modern, it felt true.

A book I recommend to everyone:

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is such a beautifully written story — like everything by RLS — and it awakens a sense of being alive that you just won’t have had before reading the book. It has psychological truth. It had a secret, almost illicit-seeming allure, this story of the corruption of the good Dr Jekyll by his own curiosity. The funny thing is that it’s set in London’s Marylebone, but it feels exactly like Edinburgh’s New Town. Stevenson simply grafted his childhood streets onto a different metropolis, which adds to the odd feel of the story. If you want a book that is word-perfect, exciting, still shocking and elevating, this is the one.

The best three books I have read in the last year:

Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll is a painstaking, tense piece of non-fiction that really gets inside the Brighton bombing. I totally adored Sonic Life: A Memoir by Thurston Moore, the lead singer and founder of one of my favourite bands, Sonic Youth. It brings such joy and is funny as hell. Glasgow Boys, a debut novel by Margaret McDonald is an absolute must-read, the most tender story of youth and friendship I’ve read in ages and just beautifully done.

The book I am most looking forward to:

Fame. Money. Beauty. Sex. Love. That’s what is promised in the new novel by 1960s model and ‘It-Girl’ Penelope Tree, whom I’ve always liked. I’m sure it’s going to be fun, but also personal, insightful, and enlightening. This seems to me the ultimate curl-up-on-sofa-with-a-tub-of-ice-cream-and-a-good-book publication, and I can’t wait for it to be out in May.

An author who has inspired me:

The American writer Joan Didion. I got to know her a bit, and she had always been a hero of mine, probably for her ability to write such concentrated, fully imagined novels at the same time as she was able to write beautiful pieces of non-fiction. Her essays are sublime.

My favourite place to read:

Sitting on a bench on the seafront at Largs in Ayrshire, where we have a house. If the sun is out, and the sea is glistening, it is simply the best spot in the world.

Andrew O’Hagan grew up in Ayrshire. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and his last novel Mayflies won the Christopher Isherwood Prize and was turned into a BBC series starring Martin Compston. Caledonian Road is published by Faber and can be bought here.

Read more of The Good Books here.

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