View Reviews of books by Martin Walker

Countdown with ...

Martin Walker

Martin Walker spent 25 years working at The Guardian newspaper in a variety of positions including bureau chief in Moscow and the United States, European editor and assistant editor. He is now the senior director of the Global Business Policy Council. He is also a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Times's Opinion section and of Europe magazine. Walker also is a regular commentator on CNN, Inside Washington. Amongst other things, he is the author of the 'Bruno' detective series set in the Périgord region of France, where he has a holiday home.

Interviewed 30 November 2013

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

Writing, writing, writing: essays, then news articles, books, now novels.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

My basset hound
Family photos
My tennis racquet
One of my wife’s paintings
Bottle of my own home-made vin de noix
I-phone
Ripe tomatoes in my vegetable garden
Chess board
Two pears just plucked from tree.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Omelette aux truffes with petit pois, fresh baguette and a bottle of Chateau de Tiregand, 2005.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

A) Dead
Trotsky
Edward Gibbon
Kaiser Bill
Shelley
Virgil
Vasari
Horatio Nelson.

B) Alive
Hilary Mantel
Bob Dylan
Ian Rankin
Jancis Robinson
Paul Simon
John Le Carre
Helen Mirren

Six things you can't live without ...

Wine
My dog
Books
My Citroen deux chevaux
Skiing
My wife’s cheese soufflé

Five favourite words ...

Mellifluous
Contemplation
Twilight
Susurration
Munificence

Four places you'd run away to ...

Isle of Mull
Capetown
Maui
Domme-en-Perigord

Three books you've bought recently ...

Philip Kerr, A Man Without Breath.
Julian Jackson; France, The Dark Years, 1940-1944.
Antony Beevor; The Second World War.

Two things that make you rant ...

Confusing discrete and discreet.
Ryanair’s endless extra charges.

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

Life is short, the world is big; see as much of it as you can.