You're used to that sort of whimsy and tone in a children's book, but you don't see it that often in books for adults. This book really informed a lot of my sensibility once I started writing. I think it was the first time I realized that books for adults could be fun. 'I had heard of the book before obviously but I hadn't sat down to read it before this.

It had a dollar bill from 1934 stuck in between the pages.

In one of those boxes I found a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. 'In college, I spearheaded a clean out of my dorm basement because of all the things that people left in boxes and never claimed. I like that sort of magic that feels everyday - magic that can come in the mail.' The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyderĭouglas Adams is an English author best known for his sci-fi series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I can't tell you the plot of this book, but I remember all those little visceral and visual details. They start growing into her skin and then they work. That imagery is the sort of visual that sticks with me. 'The wings arrive in the mail and she has to put them together, feather-by-feather. I like that sort of magic that feels everyday - magic that can come in the mail. I probably had my first Kafka exposure when I was like seven or eight. The comic book is actually a retelling of Kafka's The Metamorphosis. It's about a girl who sends away for a pair of wings from an ad in the back of a comic book. 'Mail-Order Wings is a middle-grade book. He reads in his closet to be alone with the story, something I did when I was little. 'I did a thing with The Starless Seawhere I gave a quality that I had as a child to the main character Zachary. Beatrice Gormley is an American author of children's books.

Books like the starless sea