Lev Grossman

Supposedly I've got traces of an English accent, though I can't hear it. I must have inherited it from my mother, who's English, and then I think it was exacerbated by the fact that I live with an Australian.

I've drunk Amazon's free Diet Coke. Nothing makes more sense to me than a company trying to make bookselling into a profitable business. I'm not anti-Amazon, and I'm not pro-publishers either. I'm pro-books.

I've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read 'The Dark Half,' which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psychopomp. Now I have read '11/22/63.'

J. G. Ballard is just an example of the writers I like. Philip K. Dick is obviously one of them. I'm a big fan of William Gibson as well. He started cyberpunk with 'Neuromancer.' I've come to know him a little bit over Twitter, of all places, and I was always a huge fan of his. It's very cool to know he even knows I exist.