Tom Read Wilson picks the book that made him the writer he is…

… are you reading now?

Death Writ Large, by the wondrous Susie Dent. It combines two of my favourite things: a murder mystery and etymology.

In this sequel, and the original, Guilty By Definition, Dent creates knotty cases only lexicographers can solve. The prose is as chic as the author!

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 

… would you take to a desert island?

Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I have been attempting to learn all 154 and putting fruits of my endeavour on Social Media every Sunday for two years! I think, to know Shakespeare through his plays, one has to be a bit of a detective. In the Sonnets, however, there is every colour of a man in love: Worship, ardour, jealousy, rage, crystallised in fourteen lines. At time of writing, I have reached number 151: But I cannot remember them all. A long enough stint on a lovely littoral would fix that!

… first gave you the reading bug?

The Picture of Dorian Gray! There is such a lot in that little book. It was my teenage passion. I loved the fusion of the romantic and the macabre. Recently, I visited Wilde’s first home on Merrion Square in Dublin, and it occurred to me that the Irish legend of Tír na nÓg, ‘Land of the Eternal Youth’, may have had some bearing on the plot.

If mortals visit Tír na nÓg, like Dorian Gray, they are perfectly preserved for the duration of their stay but, on returning to mortal soil, all the aging that should have happened is transferred in an instant. It perfectly mirrors what happens to Dorian when he slashes his portrait.

… left you cold?

I have never been seduced by Fantasy as a genre. I think I am too interested in human dynamics and dealings to crave anything supernatural.

■ Pricklepaper’s Letter Magic by Tom Read Wilson (words & pictures, £7.99) is available now from the Mail Bookshop .