John Baker’s Blog

1. Why do you blog?
Basically because I enjoy writing. I enjoy sounding off about things and sharing stuff I have found interesting. I also see it as a kind of preparation for some ‘real writing’. It gets me writing on a regular basis.

2. Which author and/or book has most influenced you?
This answer would change over time. Right now there are two books that I can point to as influencing me: Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader and Les Murray’s Fredy Neptune. The themes of guilt, forgiveness and witness seem to be right for this point in my life.

3. Which three blogs do you most visit?
I’m going to plump for two here as the time I spend on these far outweighs that which I spend elsewhere:
Larvatus Prodeo at: http://larvatusprodeo.net/
Sarsaparilla at: http://sarsaparillablog.net/

4. Why do you read fiction?
I’ll be honest, I don’t read a lot of what you could call strictly fiction. I read poetry also, having read a lot of verse novels in the past 12 months. I read a lot of essays. Having said that, the books that have the largest influence on me have always been novels. Those that I go back to time and again, that occupy my thoughts well after I have finished reading them. I only experience this deep resonance with fiction and poetry. I guess I would describe it as a seeping into the pores. A novel can become part of the fabric of my life, which when you think about it, is a pretty amazing power for a piece of writing to have.

5. What makes you laugh?
My son and my sister.

Georg Hibberd blogs at Stack, which can be found here: http://stack.dailyflute.com

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