Cultural Life: Lionel Shriver, Author

Books

I've been reading Richard Yates's Collected Stories. Lost Boys by James Miller is a post-11 September novel. I'm not sure it quite works but it reads very creative. I found Netherland by Joseph O'Neill mystifying. I found it so boring I wanted to scream, but for some reason it is a bestseller. I'm suspicious that without the small element of 11 September in it, it wouldn't be getting quite so much attention. Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman and Lush Life by Richard Price are excellent.

Television

I have spent most of the summer watching US election coverage. I did mop up a series on HBO called Tell Me You Love Me. They ended up cancelling it but there were very high hopes for it. It was considered to be a daring project of examining real relationships. It was conceptually static.

Film

I am ashamed to admit that the only movie I have seen this summer on screen is Journey to the Center of the Earth, which is appalling. The technique is hilarious but it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The glasses have been sitting on our window sill. They are completely useless but somehow they charm me enough that I can't throw them away.

Music

My husband's party shuffle on his iPod, which is all jazz and includes Robert Glasper's In My Element.

Theatre/opera

I haven't seen a play since Newsnight Review sent me a ticket for the stage adaptation of D B C Pierre's Vernon God Little directed by Rufus Norris at the Young Vic in 2007. It was awful. They tried very hard. In theatre it is rarely a problem of effort – but it was overdone and not very funny. I'm not a big theatre-goer. More than half the plays I see end up disappointing me.

Lionel Shriver celebrates the work of Richard Yates at the Small Wonder Short Story Festival at Charleston, East Sussex (www.charleston.org.uk), 18-21 September