The Canadian author on mountain running to George Eliot, powerful reminders from Omar El Akkad and the translation that brought Homer’s Iliad to life

My earliest reading memory
Resting in my father’s arms as he read the newspaper. I must have been three or four years old. He read the paper cover to cover, and for an hour or so each night, I watched the world go by.

My favourite book growing up
When I was 11 I would go to the library downtown and request microfilm of old newspapers. I clicked the spools into place and read and read. I was horrified and baffled and amazed that there existed so many decades, so much time, in which I was … nowhere and not yet.