Stig is the Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Britain’s leading weekly literary newspaper. Stig joined TLS having been Managing Editor of the Sun. Previous to this he was a fiction reviewer at The Spectator and reviewer at Telegraph Media Group. Away from print Stig can be heard every Sunday afternoon on LBC with a round-up of the week’s news and a look at upcoming events from cultural happenings to political debates.
He also regularly reviews newspapers on Sky News, and has appeared as a pundit on almost every broadcast channel. Stig’s previous career has taken in arts journalism, press regulation (he ran the Press Complaints Commission whilst still in his twenties) and crisis management.
From penning articles like How To Be a Bard Ass
<http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/how-to-be-a-bard-ass-read-shakespeares-complete-works-on-the-tube-9034095.html> (reading Shakespeare on the tube), in depth discussions with academics on the TLS podcast, which can be heard below, right through to commenting on the current political climate Stig is as comfortable ploughing through Ulysses
as he is dissecting the day’s papers.
@StigAbell
What was the last book you read?
National Service: A Generation in Uniform by Richard Vinen (research for a book I am writing).
Which writer would you have loved to have met – and why?
I shall be terribly cliched and say Shakespeare, because he is the most important writer both to me and to the world, and because I could then tell the world if he turned out to be Francis Bacon.
What are you watching right now on TV?
Brooklyn 99 (a fantastic American sitcom).
You’re stranded on a desert island. What three books would you want with you?
The Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan.
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
The complete P.G. Wodehouse
Tell us what you do in 20 words.
Somewhat surprisingly, I happen to edit the world’s greatest literary and cultural magazine, which everyone should read.
Go on, let us know your musical guilty pleasure.
Guns and Roses.
And your one from the world of fiction?
John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee novels.
What would be the title of your autobiography?
How Is This News?
What was your first job?
Releasing clay pigeons in the village of Kegworth for people who dressed and spoke like Alan Partridge to shoot at.
And your first in the book industry?
Fiction reviewer at the TLS (the gateway for so many).