Some books stay with you forever, as if they are a memory of your own life.
Here are mine:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – a coming of age novel set in Suffolk in the 1930s, about a teenage girl living in a dilapidated castle. One of the only books I’ve read multiple times. The last line gets me every time.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – a book I loved as a child and love equally as an adult. A precursor to me reading the Brontës. It’s a story of nature and mood and place. A book that is sad and hopeful in equal measure, and I held it in my head when writing my debut, The Illustrated Child.
The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald – a curious walking tour of Suffolk, with wonderful offshoots of history, and intriguing photographs taken by the author. This book heavily influenced my second novel, The Unravelling, especially the chapters on Orford Ness.
Waterland by Graham Swift – a novel set in the fens, spanning generations of a family. It reads like a series of fairy stories embedded in the flat, eerie land of the Lincolnshire fens.
The Offing by Benjamin Myers – a lyrical story of a friendship between a teenage boy and an old woman. The descriptions of food and wine are worth savouring, and the delicate relationship between the two people is exquisite. It was a big influence on my novel, Vita and the Birds.
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