You read the ones at the top and you never get to the bottom ones. I recently reprised the Cookstrips for a few years in The Observer Food Monthly with my son Alex. Are there any classic novels that you only recently read for the first time? When I started writing in 1960 and wrote “The Ipcress File,” I stopped reading fiction to develop my own voice. So now I almost never read fiction.

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Persons: Illustrators ”, Eric Newby, Collins, Eric, Alex, I’m, Newby, ”, “ Organizations: Illustrators, Penguin Collectors Society, Royal College of Art, The Observer, Observer Locations: New York, London