Holiday Reading: Theo Dorgan, poet & writer

I READ all the time, anywhere, everywhere: poetry of all kinds, histories, biographies of artists and scientists, novels, books on the sea. You develop an antenna for nonsense, for bad writing, especially professorial ego-plumping – I try to avoid all that. Essentially, I try to read things that challenge me, stretch my lazy mind. Or pure diversions, good thrillers.

Right now, I'm reading Tony Cronin's new collection, The Fall,Alan Furst's Spies of The Balkans, Bernard Moitessier's Cape Horn, The Logical Route, and Tove Jansson's wonderful The Summer Book.

For me, there isn’t really such a thing as “summer” reading, as I tend to read (and often re-read) the same mad mix of things all year round. Because I read all the time, I always seem to have an on-going wish list that tides me over for a few months.

Ultimately, I never know what the wind will blow in, but I've stacked up Mary O'Donoghue's Before The House Burns; Joe O'Connor's Ghost Light; Catching The Light, by Arthur Zajonc, a scientific history of light; the collected poems of a very fine American poet, Thomas McGrath, and some new work by Galway Kinnell.

As if they weren't enough, I have also put aside Dánta Phiarais Feiritéirby Pierce Ferriter and the poems of Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin.

I always try to bring something to Greece with me that may make better sense if read there; this summer it's Modern Greek Writing, edited by David Ricks. Looks promising.

As told to Tony Clayton-Lea

• Theo Dorgan's new book, Time On The Ocean, a Voyage from Cape Horn to Cape Town, is published by New Island in October.