We grill our work experience student James Rex on his reading habits, and his love for Lord of the Rings.

If you could be transported into the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which story would you want to be part of, and why? Would you try alter the plot in any way, or would you try let it unfold naturally?

I’d probably be a hobbit, staying far away from all the trouble and enjoying my comfy hole while I eat my third lunch. Any place where eating seven meals a day is socially acceptable seems pretty good for me. I say this also because if I got anywhere near that ring I’d probably end up turning bad…

Or maybe I’d be an elf. As someone who admires beauty (probably due to my lack of it) I’d have a fun time in the trees and stuff. Also if I had to fight I’d want one of those really nice shiny sets of armour with the purple cloaks. I watched Game of Thrones for a while as well, but then all my favourite characters died and, overall, it was a pretty bleak show.

One of our booksellers is an avid LoTR fan like you – she once forced her father to watch all three extended films in the one sitting despite his protests. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done in the name of fandom?

Oh yes. My friend and I were playing online video games and chatting over Skype. He said he had only seen the films and didn’t want to read the books because they were, “boring”. I quit the call and ten minutes later I showed up at his house, a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in hand. I then read the first few chapters of the book out loud to him. He kept falling asleep so I had to poke him with the end of a mop every five minutes.

You’ve spoken about your love of the Chinese language and culture. Why did you decide to learn this particular language?

I think my favourite thing about learning Chinese is the Chinese radical system, which is so different from how the English language is determined. For example, in English “chrono” in chronological means time. Or, if I was in class and encountered the word dendrochronology, I would know that the word has something to do with studying, time and trees. So I could guess it means something along the lines of finding out how old a tree is.

However I can’t figure out the meaning of the word car just from looking at the word now can I?!

In Chinese each character is made up of multiple radicals, and these radicals either help with the meaning of the word or how you say it. For example 汽车 means car. The three little dots on the side of the first character mean water. The second part of the character means air or gas. Together they make steam/vapor or fuel. The second character means vehicle. (It’s supposed to look like an axel.) So, what’s a vehicle that runs on fuel? A car!

Give us your very best argument for why Wuthering Heights is a book worth loving.

Hmmm, Wuthering Heights… What a book! I think the appeal for me is a combination of Heathcliff’s character, the passion of the story, and the way Emily Brontë manages to make a stroll along the moor seem really entertaining. It’s a big book and I’ve forgotten a lot of what happens, but there are also many parts that I can remember as though I had just finished reading the book this morning. It’s very dense. You can’t read it while half-asleep and you can’t skim over it to get an idea of what’s going on. You have to commit. All I know for sure is that I came away from this book feeling satisfied.

You called yourself a nerd, which, let’s face it, many of our staff are too. In trying to sum up what this word meant we came up with ‘smart, loves pop culture, maybe wears glasses…’ What does this word mean for you?

Yours is a pretty good summary. Although I think that as nerds, we’re also pretty weird. The other day my friends and I were all playing the Battlestar Galactica board game and we had a music playlist going. Most of the songs were trash but then the How to Train Your Dragon theme came on. Tully gets up, grabs a blanket, and starts flapping around the room like she’s a dragon. So I did too. Our two other friends, one of which was a Cylon scumlord, looked at us like we had gone insane. I forgave them as they just hadn’t experienced the glory of How to Train Your Dragon yet. (I’m not going to lie, I cried twice while watching the sequel. I get very emotional in films.) Also, a night of Magic: The Gathering, or Dungeons and Dragons, with some hummus and savoury biscuits sounds like a party to me.

Here’s a tough question… How do you describe that “new book smell” for someone who’s never experienced it?

New book smell. Hmmm. Coffee + mown grass + cinnamon.

What do you think is the worst mistake an author can make when writing a book for teenagers?

I feel like – in order to make a book relateable or whatever – some authors try to put things that they don’t really understand into the book. It’s almost like they Google something like: “What do kids do for fun these days?” or “What slang is used by teenagers?”. And then they just try to put as many things as they can find into their books without really understanding what the context. It can end up being really cringy to read.

There’s a lot of discussion at the moment around the importance of diversity in books for teenagers. Do you think there is a need for more diversity?

Diversity in books and film is an interesting one. I sometimes ask myself: Is this character’s race/gender/sexuality/etc important to the plot? Does it make sense in the story? Or, is it just this way so the author can be all like, “Hey guys, look, I’m NOT racist/sexist/homophobic/etc”? Now, obviously I want more diverse books and films – and games too for that matter. Props to Wizards of the Coast for having a trans character and a gay couple. But I think also that authors and directors need to stop making characters that are only there to protect them from criticism. I want to see a character that is strong, cool, funny, badass or whatever, and not a character whose race/gender/sexuality/etc defines who they are.

What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

The best writing advice I’ve ever received actually came from my cello teacher. For whatever reason he was looking over an essay I had written for school. It was pretty rubbish and I forget the topic – I think it was about slippers or something. He told me to just write like I’m talking to someone or giving a speech, and since then I think my writing has improved. My marks in English certainly have at least. I’ve never really been one to plan out my writing. I just kinda get into it. It’s not very efficient though, as I often end up scrapping whole paragraphs. Even in this Q&A, I’ve cut out hundreds of words about video games. I get off track very easily.