My Culture Hits: What Author Matt Haig Is Reading, Watching & Listening To
Matt Haig is an award-winning novelist and journalist perhaps best-known for his book The Midnight Library, a fantastical novel about Nora Seed, who finds herself in a library between life and death. He’s also the author of 2015’s Reasons To Stay Alive, in which he explores his own relationship with wellbeing. As he prepares for the release of his latest novel, The Life Impossible, Haig takes part in the Service95 Book Club series My Culture Hits, sharing what he’s watching, listening to and reading right now…
The Film I Always Recommend... I bore people to death with movie recommendations. I love all the early Spielbergs, particularly Jaws and E.T., which I think are both as close to perfect as movies can be. Stand By Me and Hook aren’t perfect, but I love them for nostalgic reasons. I am also a big Studio Ghibli fan and find My Neighbour Totoro probably the most enchanting film ever made. I love that it takes its time, is so hand crafted and gentle, and very different to a Disney film. It feels entirely authentic.
The Album I’m Streaming On Repeat... I was never into Fleetwood Mac when I was young – I was too much of a goth and then too much of a raver – but now I love them. So I would say it is probably Tango In The Night, which isn’t exactly a modern album, but it still sounds new in terms of production and ideas. Everywhere is such a perfect pop song, and I have a whole scene based around it in my new novel The Life Impossible. There is even a chapter called ‘Fleetwood Mac’. Back in the day, they were quite a Balearic band – apparently in the ’80s, the legendary Argentinian DJ Alfredo used to play Everywhere and Big Love at Amnesia in Ibiza, back when it was an open-air club.
A Fictional World I’d Love To Visit… Tatooine – the desert planet in Star Wars. I like hot places. Plus, it seems to have a vibrant and edgy nightlife scene: live music; a diverse array of alien life forms. A bit dangerous, though, so you’d have to go with someone who knows it well. Han Solo, maybe. Actually, I’d go for somewhere more comforting: the Hundred Acre Wood, so I can hang out with Tigger and Winnie-the-Pooh. I love The House At Pooh Corner. A.A. Milne was a complete genius. He was writing about universal psychological stuff and finding cuddly animals to put these states of mind in, from the trembling anxiety of Piglet to the nihilistic depression of Eeyore.
The Last Book I Couldn’t Put Down… I can always put books down, unfortunately, as I have a permanently distracted ADHD brain, but the last book I truly loved was Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics, talking about the meaning and inspiration behind different songs he wrote. The last novel that really absorbed me was Claire Lombardo’s Same As It Ever Was. I also read Daphne Du Maurier’s short stories for the first time recently and they are so perfectly structured and plotted – it was like walking into a cathedral, where you look around in awe at the way it was put together
My Favourite Reading Spot Is… A hammock.
A Piece Of Art I Would Love To Have On My Wall… The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai would be pretty cool to have hanging there. I studied art history at university and although the focus was on modern art, I loved some Renaissance painters. Especially the Venetian ones such as Titian and Veronese that always had a lushness to them. Veronese was interesting because he turned every religious painting he was commissioned into a kind of Venetian carnival, with people eating grapes, laughing, hanging out with monkeys, wearing bright clothes. It would be a bit much for a living room wall, though.
The Artist Who Inspires Me Most… A few different people, for different reasons. The American 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, because although she was nervous and agoraphobic and unknown in her lifetime, she found and created such power and strength in words. David Bowie, for how he saw the arts as one big soup. He didn’t think a musician should just be influenced by music; he was influenced by art, novels, philosophy and fashion. His song Jean Genie, for instance, was named after the French writer Jean Genet. And he always talked about fashion designers inspiring his music. I feel the same way. Most of my influences come from outside writing. I can be influenced by places, songs, adverts, conversations, people, just as much as I can be influenced by a book. It’s all creativity. We place walls that don’t need to be there, because there is no ceiling to be held up.
Matt Haig’s new novel The Life Impossible (£20, Canongate) will be published on 29 August. Find out more about his UK tour (from 25 August) here
Jamie Styles is Digital Editorial Assistant at Service95
