Tom Cox is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who has written many bestselling books such as 21st-Century Yokel, Help The Witch and Notebook. He lives near Dartmoor, wrangles a number of cats, and has just released his first full-length novel, Villager – You can read our review here.

Question 1 – What book changed your life?

My first instinct is to say something I’ve read as an adult which significantly changed my reading habits or my ideas about what I could do with a book as a writer – Ulverton by Adam Thorpe or Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban or a collection of Grace Paley or Annie Proulx short story. But the most accurate answer is probably Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl. It was the book that first made me want to tell stories, gave me a yearning to implant little universes in people’s heads. I lived so extensively in its landscape, nagged my mum and dad to read it and reread it to me, then reread it myself, over and over again.

Question 2 – What is your ‘Comfort Read’ – a book you often reread or turn to when you need cheering up?
You mean apart from Fantastic Mr Fox? I must confess I’m not a big rereader. There are too many exciting-looking books out there still to discover. But worlds I have liked to return to – usually via the audiobook versions – are A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving, Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo and Ragtime by EL Doctorow.

Question 3 – What is the book that you keep meaning to write or would like to write but haven’t got round to?

Ragtime would probably fit this, too. One of those books where you think “I’d kill to have had the skill and confidence to do that.” EL Doctorow is definitely the kind of writer I’d like to be when I grow up. For a long time my own Villager was the book I was extremely annoyed I hadn’t written – although if I had attempted it earlier it would have been an inferior book to the one it is. Now I find myself fantasising about writing more in-depth historical fiction, trying my hand at writing non-fiction about other cultures and countries, and weaving narratives around little eras (namely the early 80s and early 90s) I remember well in a certain place (Nottinghamshire) which seemed mundane at the time but whose weirdness has since had time to crystallise in my mind.