Ten minutes with… is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they’re reading right now and what’s getting them through these difficult times.

Today Gary chats with World Fantasy Award-winning Sofia Samatar about the great German writer W.G. Sebald, returning to formative books in times of stress, the literary prehistory of robots as explored in her wonderful story “Fairy Tales for Robots”, and her upcoming story “The New Book of the Dead” in Philosophy Through Science Fiction Stories.

Books mentioned include:

• Tender by Sofia Samatar
• The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz, and Vertigo by W.G. Sebald,
• The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
• Silver Road: Maps, Essays and Calligraphies by Ali Kazim