As a child marooned in a post-war South London backwater with no ready cash and a bafflingly dysfunctional family, I had to glean my amusement wherever I could.

My bedroom was filled with reading material: books salvaged from dustbins, books borrowed from friends, books with missing pages, books found in the street, abandoned, unreadable, torn, scribbled on, unloved, unwanted and dismissed. My bedroom was the Battersea Dogs' Home of books.

For me, imagination would always provide a means of escape.

Christopher Fowler Quotes