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What happens to your brain when you read a good book? As an award-winning novelist, translator and critic, Tim Parks is well-placed to investigate any questions we have about books and reading. In this collection of provocative pieces, originally published in the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, he talks about what readers want from books and how to look at the literature we encounter in a new light.

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Should you finish every book you start?

How has your family influenced the way you read?

What is literary style?

How is the Nobel Prize like the World Cup?

Why do you hate the book your friend likes?

Is writing really just like any other job?

What happens to your brain when you read a good book?

As a novelist, translator and critic, Tim Parks is well-placed to investigate any questions we have about books and reading. In this collection of lively and provocative pieces he talks about what readers want from books and how to look at the literature we encounter in a new light.

These pieces were originally published as columns in the New York Review of Books.

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"A book about reading that only makes you want to read more and a book about writing that needs to be read" Tim Adams Observer

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Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. In 1981 he moved to Italy where he has lived ever since.

He is the acclaimed author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, Cleaver , A Season with Verona, Teach Us to Sit Still and Italian Ways. He has won the Somerset Maugham, Betty Trask and Llewellyn Rhys awards, and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lectures on literary translation in Milan, writes for publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books , and his many translations from the Italian include works by Moravia, Calvino, Calasso, Tabucchi and Machiavelli.

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Born in Manchester, Tim Parks grew up in London and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. He lives in Milan.

He is the acclaimed author of novels, non-fiction and essays, including Europa, In Extremis, A Season with Verona, Teach Us to Sit Still and Italian Ways. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Betty Trask Prize, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the John Florio Prize and the Italo Calvino Prize.

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