We love those sections in the weekend newspapers where writers talk about their favourite books of the year, or best beach reads (except for the ones that reckon they’re reading Proust over an ice-cream and Derrida in Turkey, they’re just mildly disturbing) so we’ve invited some of our favourite authors to discuss who they’ve been reading, what’s turned them on and what’s been inspiring.

We did initially ask for something about new writing and writing from the UK, to tie in with what this issue of Literature Matters is all about. But it seems that our writers have a more eclectic and disparate approach to their reading. Travelling from the Philippines to Australia to the US and Canada we are taken on a literary tour around the world, offered some insight into what inspires writers and given a few thoughts as to what we might read next ourselves.