Book lover: Paul Torday

Paul Torday is a UK author whose most recent novel is The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).

The book I love most is ... Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel, of a rich heiress and her husband, set in Switzerland and France just after World War I, is unsurpassed as a story about the corrupting influence of wealth. Fitzgerald's characters are so vividly drawn you feel you are with them.

The book I'm reading right now is ... Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies. He writes about European kingdoms - in Britain, Spain, Poland and elsewhere - that have now vanished almost without trace, such as Spain's Kingdom of Aragon.

The book I'd like to read next is ... The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery, by Kyril Bonfiglioli, which he never finished but which was completed after his death by the satirist Craig Brown. It describes the adventures of a bent art dealer.

The book that changed me is ... Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. It was after reading this book that I decided I would like to write myself one day.

My favourite bookstore is ... Heywood Hill, in Mayfair, London. I love it as you will find books there you have never seen or heard of, and sometimes these turn out to be real treasures.

The book I wish I'd never read is ... Nothing I have read has been cause for any serious regret.