As today, March 5th, is World Book Day, we thought we would open this discussion about books, glorious, books!
I can't imagine a life without books. Like most writers, I was a devoted reader before I ever tried writing anything myself. When I was five and a half, I picked up my older sister's copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I've never looked back. A few words in the book confused me, but I couldn't put it down - in fact, when I finished it for the first time, I immediately started reading it again. My parents started to get worried I'd never read anything else, so they handed me another Narnia book, The Silver Chair - I got about a quarter of the way through and returned to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Luckily, I eventually broke free of Narnia and read some other books, and when I started writing my own stories they were always "inspired by" (read: ripped off from) whatever I was reading at the time. So when I read Mallory Towers and the Chalet School, I wrote boarding school stories (despite the fact that I was attending a state primary school in north Dublin). When I read fantasy stories, I wrote them too.
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When I got a bit older and was reading Judy Blume and Paula Danziger, I wrote about teenage dramas. Though as, in the late 1980s, there were virtually no books about Irish teenagers, I set my story in America because it seemed the only location for teenage adventure. Basically, if there was a sort of book I wanted to read, I wanted to write it too. Which I still think is a good approach for any writer, although these days I think you should try and be a bit more original.
As I grew older I started reading adult fiction, mostly books written decades before I was born - E. M. Forster's A Room with a View, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. Over the years I've happily read thrillers and romances, fantasy and Orwell's gritty non-fiction, chick lit and historical dramas. I firmly believe there are good books in every genre, and my favourite books of recent years are an eclectic bunch.
There's Sarah Waters's The Paying Guests, a totally compelling story of a 20-something woman in the early 1920s whose relationship with her new female lodger leads to secrets, violence and high drama. There's Marian Keyes's moving, smart and often very funny The Woman Who Stole My Life, whose heroine experiences a terrifying illness and becomes an unlikely best-selling author.
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There's Samantha Ellis's wonderful memoir How to Be A Heroine, in which the author looks at the fictional characters who have influenced her most, from Anne of Green Gables to Elizabeth Bennet. And there's C. J. Sansom's Lamentation, the latest in his brilliant series about Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake.
These books are all very different, but they're all engaging and compelling and full of good ideas. And I think all three of them would be potentially great book club subjects. But what do you think? What titles do you think could lead to interesting discussions? And what books influenced you most when you were growing up?
