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When I turned fifteen, I remember my father gave me a credit card which I was allowed to use for two things: emergencies and books.

By the time I was 12, I was reading my parents' books because there weren't teenage books then.

When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

I was about 11 or 12 when I began to pick up my mother's books.

At the age of eight, I discovered that I could write songs. My dad used to take them to the notary and register them so that nobody could steal them from me.

When I was young, my parents had a library in our living room. I was always free to browse and read.

My grandparents used to bring me books every time they saw me.

I was a member of Corstorphine Library in Edinburgh, and every Friday night, my parents took me there to borrow books. I also used to spend nearly all my pocket money on books.

I was an early reader, reading even before kindergarten, and since we did not have books in my home, my older brother, Alexander, was responsible for our trip every week to the public library to exchange books already read for new ones to be read.