Ruth Ozeki: ‘All my books are an attempt to recreate Charlotte’s Web’

The US author, film-maker and Zen Buddhist priest on smart young girls, the difference between irony and cynicism, and working her way through 13 volumes of ChekhovMy earliest reading memoryI was reading – or pretending to read – before my brain could encode memories, so probably around three or four? I “read” Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, but that was mostly pictures.My favourite book growing upCharlotte’s Web by EB White. For years,