A Message from The Guardian Live:

Thank you for joining this Guardian Live online event, we hope you found it enjoyable.

The event is now available to view on-demand here.  We have also included below a reading list of writers and works mentioned by Alan and Stewart during the discussion.

We welcome feedback and would appreciate it if you could fill out this short survey to help us improve our event offering.

For updates on future events please follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or sign up to our newsletter. 

Thank you for your support of the Guardian Live programme.

--

Reading List

Alan and Stewart talked about several different writers who had influenced Alan's work - and a few of you have asked for a reading list. Here are some of the authors and books they discussed...

• When talking about the story "Illuminations," Stewart referenced Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - a story about lost childhood.  The character in Moore's story finds a copy of The Silver Locusts by Bradbury in a junk shop. 

• When they spoke about Moore's story "The Improbably Conscious High-Energy State", Stewart compared Moore's experimental writing to Italo Calvino.

• When talking about the story "American Light: An Appreciation" Stewart said it read like an affectionate parody of 50s-60s beat poets Lawrence Ferllinghetti and Alan Ginsberg. Alan is a subscriber to Kevin Ring's Beat Scene magazine. 

• When talking about the first story, "Hypothetical Lizard", Stewart said he was reminded of the grotesque fantasy world of Clark Ashton Smith's novels. He also referenced the illustrations of Barry Windsor-Smith - particularly for Conan: Red Nails. 

• When talking about Northampton in Alan's work, Stewart referred to A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre. They both talked about Steve Aylett, in particular LINT, which contains what Stewart called a similar "collision of words that ought not to go together" - and Stewart recommended another title by Aylett, Hyperthick.

• Alan said the first of his new Long London series, The Great When - is influenced by Arthur Machen's writing, set in London - particularly his novel The Green Round and the short story, "N".  

• Alan talked about writing about specific places - in his case Northampton and London - and referred to William Hope Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland, which was inspired by Hodgson seeing a house balanced precariously at the top of a clifftop chasm in Galway. In the 60s Iris Murdoch wrote The Unicorn after visiting the same place - both novels were similarly about a recluse threatened by supernatural visitations from below. 

• When asked what he'd recommend for a 10 year old boy to read, Alan recommended Alan Garner - in particular his latest book, Treacle Walker. He also read Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost at the age of 10.

• When asked his favourite ghost story, Alan picked Lost Hearts by MR James. He also praised the ghost stories of Robert Aickman.