su-lin and i were standing in the orchard library looking at the P shelf and talking about how fantastic the time of our singing is, when i discovered a gross injustice which has been perpetrated by i don't know who but it had better not be julian himself. what do you mean, i demanded of su-lin, that julian introduced richard powers to our set? i read him in college because of chip tucker and told julian to read him!

i think it would be rather cool for us to all get together and chart the way different authors are brought into our set, and how they circulate amongst us. my anne carsons came through yen, but my pratchetts didn't come through von, even if he started before any of us, but my first sayers (busman's honeymoon) he lent me when we were in jc. su-lin introduced us to the casson family, and started me on diana wynne jones, and many other children's authors, including sylvia waugh and nina bawden, although konigsburg is my doing. alan garner and patricia mckillip i got through alison milbank. i can't remember how i started on leon garfield. diana athill seems only to be something yen and i take to heart deeply, and her i got from heath. poach introduced me to byatt, which was a real blessing because from byatt i discovered cees nooteboom, which then started me reading a great many dutch writers, and led to harry mulisch! (can i have credit for introducing mulisch to our set? enough of us read him, and there is the procedure and siegfried and the assault and the unforgettable discovery of heaven. that must count as lots of brownie points for me.)