“People often ask me if my ideas ever come from dreams,” says prolific novelist Dean Koontz, who has an estimated 450 million books in print.
The answer? No, except lately, when he woke up at 4 one morning with the idea for his new novel, “Innocence.” He tells The Post he dreamed that he and the late actor/writer Thomas Tryon were discussing Tryon’s new book. “We were talking about the scenes in it, and it was that concept that became the essence of “Innocence.'”
Koontz says he told a friend about it, adding that when he “crossed over to the other side,” he was afraid he’d find Tryon waiting for him with a bunch of attorneys. “Don’t worry,” the friend said. “There aren’t any attorneys in heaven.”
Hmmmm….Here’s what’s in Koontz’s library.
Collected Poems
by T.S. Eliot
Sometimes people ask why so many epigraphs in my books are from T.S. Eliot. I tell them it’s because I can’t find anything else as brilliant! The vigor and beauty of his language and his progress from the dolors of “The Waste Land” to the radiance of his later work inspire me.
My Life Among the Deathworks
by Philip Rieff
Before stumbling upon this first book in the cultural theorist’s stunning trilogy, I felt that we were moving toward a death- rather than life-affirming culture. Rieff clarified for me the forces in art and literature that propel us toward the abyss, and why. Fearless, bracing sociological analysis, his thinking is a whetstone on which my own has been sharpened.
A History of the English- Speaking Peoples Since 1900
by Andrew Roberts
True history in an age when history is often distorted by ideology. As a writer working in the English language, I find this volume invaluable because it reminds me what culture shaped me and why I should be thankful to have been born where and when I was.
The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame
When I was a child, this novel made the real world entirely dissolve around me. I now have several editions, including those illustrated by Michael Hague and Charles van Sandwyk. I see the world as layered with mysteries and wonders, a perception that began to be formed with this lovely story. Mr. Toad! He is my brother from another mother!