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“It’s hard for me to find time for reading,” says Reid, professor of statistics at the University of Toronto, Canada, “but I love reading novels.” Graham Swift’s Last Orders (Random House, 1996) was “quite remarkable”. She has also just finished reading Paul Auster’s The Book of Illusions (Henry Holt, 2002) and Brian Moore’s No Other Life (Bantam, 1993).

On her bedside table is Luciano Canfora’s account of the Library of Alexandria, The Vanished Library (University of California, 1992).

“These authors are all male!” she notes, “I usually look for female authors. So I’ll add Alice Munro to my summer list.”…

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