Jeffrey Archer on books, cricket and India

BIG COMEBACK: Jeffrey Archer has stormed back into bestseller list with A Prisoner of Birth.

        

Featured Blog

Rohit Khilnani

Terror, Terror Everywhere

Featured Slideshows

Jeffrey Archer: Yes, 17 drafts by hand indeed. It's tiring and hard work but you gotta drive yourself. It is not as hard as it sounds because my PA types the first one, and then she triple-spaces it, and I work on it with pencil, on the top of the typing. So the second draft is a lot easier than the first one.

Amrita Tripathi: Its a system that obviously works for you. You’re not trying to change it?

Jeffrey Archer: The answer to this question and anybody watching this programme is if you want to write, do what suits you. If you want to eat bananas and jump over pigeons while you're writing, do it. If it works for you, it works for you. Hand writing works for me. J K Rowling sits in a cafe typing. I couldn't sit in a cafe typing, because, one, I can't type and, two, the noise would annoy me.

Amrita Tripathi: A lot of people read you. Who are the people that you read?

Jeffrey Archer: I'm a bit old-fashioned. I love F Scott Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham, Charles Dickens, Eveleyn Waugh, Maupassant and O Henry. Even though I’m not big on modern writer, I really did like Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy a lot. I thought that was quite outstanding. Apart from that, I have a tendency to listen to people. If someone recommends a book to me, I’ll buy and read it the same day. So in a way, I’m another word-of-mouth person.

Amrita Tripathi: It’s interesting that you being a writer yourself, you trust recommendations more than bestseller lists or critics.

Jeffrey Archer: It often happens that the authors mentioned in the bestseller lists do not suit your taste. A lot of “chick-lit” books that are popular out there in the West these days may not necessarily be right for me.

Amrita Tripathi: We'll have to end on that note. Thank you very much for taking the time out for this interview.

Jeffrey Archer: It was my pleasure.