When I was a young kid, I loved English comics, so the best book I got as a gift was “The Beano Annual,” every Christmas. The Beano was a real delight every year. It was a huge part of British childhood in the 1950s — Eric Clapton’s reading one on the cover of an early Bluesbreakers album. Conversely, the most disappointing book I ever got came from some far-off auntie, who’d clearly heard of my love of comics and got me “The Bunty Annual.” Bunty was a comic for girls — it was full of comic strips about boarding schools and aspiring ballerinas. I just thought: Why has she bought me this? Doesn’t she know what sex I am? How distant a relation is this woman?

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine and who is your favorite villain or antihero?

Because I loved Charles Dickens so much when I was a kid, I’d say my favorite hero was David Copperfield. And as for antiheroes, either Dracula or the Vampire Lestat. I wouldn’t mind being a vampire myself.

What kind of reader were you as a child?

I was a voracious reader, I was almost as obsessed with reading as I was with music and football. I read a lot of classics — “Moby-Dick,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Robert Louis Stevenson. “Moby-Dick” was quite terrifying; it really caused my imagination to run riot. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was incredible — slavery and racism were really strong topics for a kid in ’50s Britain to be reading about. All those classics, I bought them all leather-bound from a book club when I was a teenager and I still have those copies. I often go back and read them — I read “Moby-Dick” not so long ago. It’s still completely amazing.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Charles Dickens, obviously. Margaret Atwood — I’d love to sit down with her. The first time I read “The Handmaid’s Tale,” I immediately thought, “I’d like to meet the person who wrote this.” She’s a brilliant writer and I love her values. And then someone who would completely throw the party into chaos, someone incredibly opinionated and waspish, like Dirk Bogarde.

What book do you plan to read next?

I think I might reread “D.V.,” by Diana Vreeland. It’s one of the campest books I’ve ever read in my life, and I’m fairly certain that you should take quite a lot of the anecdotes in it with a pinch of salt — you do spend your time reading it with one eyebrow raised, muttering, “Yeah, right” — but it’s incredibly entertaining. Every time I see a paperback copy of it, I buy it in order to give it to someone as a gift. I’ve bought it many, many times.

What moves you most in a work of literature?

It’s the same as with music: I’m drawn to melancholy in books. And the way a good author describes people — that’s my favorite thing about Dickens, the incredible way he depicts other human beings. That’s true of nonfiction too. Something like “The Moon’s a Balloon,” David Niven’s memoir, he describes other people so well that you feel like you were there when he encountered them, like an onlooker. I think that’s the secret of great writing.

What’s the best book about music you’ve ever read?

Pete Townshend sent me a book by Joe Boyd, called “White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s.” He’s an American who was involved with the blues scene and the folk revival in the early ’60s, then came to London and made his name as a producer during the Summer Of Love: He produced the first Pink Floyd single, then went on to work with Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. I knew him a little when I was starting out — just before I became famous, I got some session work singing Nick Drake’s songs for a demo tape, which Joe thought he could use to interest other artists in covering them. “White Bicycles” is a brilliant book. He’s got a really interesting view of London in the ’60s, because he was an outsider who ended up in the thick of the whole hippie movement. His writing really brings that era alive.

How do you organize your books?

Very well! I’m very meticulous about things like that. I have a huge library of books on art and photography, kept in the gallery at my home in Windsor, all cataloged and detailed so I can have what I want at my fingertips. They’re very well arranged. I hate seeing things lying on the floor in a horrible state. I’m a very organized bloke.