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Graeme Simsion: “It was really important to get Rosie right”

'The Rosie Result' author talks to WHO
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The first novel by Melbourne-based author Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project, became a global bestseller after its 2014 publication, and the last in the trilogy, The Rosie Result, is out Tues., Feb. 5. Simsion tells WHO about his literary loves.

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What’s the first book you remember reading?
The entire series of Noddy. I must have been about 5. I just loved the idea that I could read on my own. And I used to copy out all of Noddy’s little songs painstakingly.

What do you read on holiday?
Non-fiction. It feels like a guilty pleasure. When I’m reading fiction, I’m looking at how it’s done.

What book do you always return to?
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps. It’s a spiritual book. I’m not a Zen adherent but it was given to me by someone who was and he said, “You can’t approach this like a normal book, you have to let it soak in,” and I’ve soaked it in over a number of years.

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What book would you have loved to have written?
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It’s a very clever book about the commonalities between computer science, mathematics, painting and music. [It] became a bit of a cult book for computer people, which is what I was back in the day.

What’s been the hardest character of your own to get a handle on?
Rosie. It was really important to get Rosie right because I knew I’d have a ton of female readers who’d judge me harshly if I got it wrong.
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