The Alex Rider author on being put off Dickens for a decade, why he reads poetry in the mornings, and how reading Sherlock Holmes made him want to be a crime writerMy earliest reading memory I started with a comic: Valiant. Hardly great literature – but it provided escapism from my prep school. The tales of Kelly’s Eye and the Steel Claw enthralled me and I still dream of them now.My favourite book growing up I was always a fan of Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise. She was a sort of female James Bond, a criminal turned government agent. My parents used to read each new book as it came out and then hand it on to me. It was one of the few things that brought us together as a family. Continue reading...