Today we're happy to welcome Phillippe Diederich to Clear Eyes, Full Shelves, whose new novel, Playing for the Devil's Fire, is out now from the excellent Cinco Puntos Press (this is an outstanding independent press--seek out their books if you're looking for fresh voices). 

I started reading seriously when I was in tenth grade. I had a great English teacher and we were reading Italian and Russian short stories. I really took to the Russians. It led me to read Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina. I didn't read that much for the rest of my high school days, but that was mostly because I didn't like the books I came across. We had to read Ordinary People and The Old Man and the Sea. Well, for a 16 year old boy who'd never gone fishing, I couldn't imagine more boring books.