Read was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, UK. He is the son of the poet, Herbert Read, and comes from a Roman Catholic family. He received his B.A. in 1961 and M.A. in 1962 from Cambridge University. In the years 1963-64, he spent a year in West Berlin on a Ford Foundation Fellowship. This inspired his second novel The Junkers (1968) and his general sympathy towards the Germans. In the years 1967-68, he spent a year in New York - an experience he used in The Professor's Daughter' (1971)Read is a practising Catholic and Vice-President of the Catholic Writers' Guild of England and Wales. He is married and the father of four children. He lives in London.


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