There wasn't much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.
Jonathan Coe's genial, likeable novel can only be described as a kind of lit-prog-rock concept album. . . Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of having planted a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box I carried around in my school days. . . As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read.