WHAT BOOK would thriller writer Harlan Coben take to a desert island? 

…are you reading now?

The Witch Elm by the Irish crime writer Tana French — lyrical, suspenseful, unpredictable.

… would you take to a desert island?

I never re-read books so I’d bring something new that’s really long. Any suggestions?

… gave you the reading bug?

What didn’t? My first book about strange disappearances, Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman; then Charlie And The Chocolate Factory; the Narnia Series; A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle. That takes us up to age 11. If you get the bug by that stage, it doesn’t go away.

… left you cold?

The Hobbit. This is totally my fault, not Tolkien’s. Please don’t tell anyone, okay? Especially Richard Armitage, who starred as Thorin in the movie version and is now filming the Netflix adaptation of my novel The Stranger. (See what I did here?)

• Run Away by Harlan Coben is published by Century at £20.