My Life in Books podcast: Sebastian Faulks on Birdsong and how Martin Amis shaped his career
Welcome to the Telegraph's new books podcast, My Life in Books.
In this series some of Britain's favourite novelists - Jojo Moyes, Marian Keyes and Louis de Bernières - discuss their lives, childhoods and careers, as well as the three books that shaped them.
For the third episode in the series, we welcome one of Britain's best-loved novelists, Sebastian Faulks, who has written 14 novels including Engleby, Human Traces and Birdsong, which was turned into a television drama starring Eddie Redmayne.
In this episode, Faulks talks about meeting his wife Veronica at work, his rebellious teenage years at Cambridge ('I went to two lectures in three years') - and how Martin Amis shaped his career as a novelist.
He also opens up about the death of his grandfather, who was a Telegraph journalist and served in both the First World War and Second World War.
Born in Berkshire, Faulks was educated at Wellington College and put ahead two years, which he says was an unhappy time. 'It [school]was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. And I think a lot of nonsense is talked about the character forming nature of bad experiences... On the contrary, too much unhappiness, too many unhappy experiences actually warp your character.'
Faulks also discusses his new novel, Paris Echo, following a French-Algerian teenage immigrant and an American academic who meet in Paris.
New episodes are released each week on Thursdays at 11am. Next week's guest is Jojo Moyes.
To listen to this episode or subscribe to the podcast, visit:
Android - www.playpodca.st/my-life-in- books (paste the link into your podcast app of choice)