I’ve been here a while. I’ve read quite a lot of books. And while I’d hate anyone to miss out on Lorna Sage’s Bad Blood, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man and anything by Simone de Beauvoir, especially The Woman Destroyed, selecting the five books that really mean something to me required a more thoughtful process.
The following books have all had their moment in my time and will remain on my bookshelf forever. Some stand alone as just a stunning piece of writing, others are there for giving me a nudge, making me think, moving me on. I’d be delighted if you enjoyed reading anything from this list. Better still, go figure out your own.
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
In my no-tech, pre-Netflix childhood, there were many books read. Later, as a parent myself, I was keen to share. But passing on those early literary raves wasn’t easy. Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories? Don’t think so . The Secret Garden? We’ll pass. My Family and Other Animals? No takers in my house. The biggest disappointment, though, was with Elizabeth Goudge’s The Little White Horse. An enthralling tale of magic and mystery that was adored by 10-year-old me but unread by every child I’ve ever tried to push it on.
Fast-forward a couple of years and, waiting in drenching rain with two kids for a much-hyped midnight drop of the latest Harry Potter, I finally got it. It wasn’t about the books. Milly-Molly-Mandy, the little girl who wore the same stripy dress every day (even if it was pink), was never going to grab a fully fashion-conscious 5-year-old. My worn copy of Beverly Cleary’s excellent Fifteen was thrown on the floor because the daughter at that number had discovered Tina Fey’s writing genius in teen angst comedy film, Mean Girls. What we were sharing (and still do) was a love of good reads and great writing, wherever and whenever you come to them. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was and remains my girl’s The Little White Horse. It may well be the book she’ll want to pass on to her own kids. Good luck with that.
Cooking From An Italian Garden by Paola Scaravelli and Jon Cohen
I have 278 cookbooks and counting. And contrary to what my husband believes, I use them all. Recipes apart, the best cookbooks for me are those that deliver gentle meanders into other people’s kitchen stories. I love recipes that have been handed down (thank you, Mum), come attached to a charming tale or have just blossomed from a happy mistake. I love dishes that make life deliciously simple as well as those that present a creative challenge (four-tier naked wedding cake, anyone?). I love the writing of foodies, old and new, and couldn’t consider a bookshelf that didn’t have Jane Grigson, Nigel Slater, Simon Hopkinson and Madhur Jaffrey recipes within reach. Yotam Ottolenghi, Anna Jones, Felicity Cloake and the talented chefs behind Moro and Honey and Co., respectively, are right up there, too.
Cooking From An Italian Garden and I have been together a long time and it is still the book I turn to often. The cover photography (circa 1984) is wonderfully dated but inside you’ll find the vegetarian takes on Italian cuisine are anything but. The recipes are fresh, simple and surprisingly modern, some of the best food I have ever cooked. Should you be tempted to buy this American publication, do try the unusually tasty Sardinian Artichoke Pie, the easy and delicious Spaghetti with Gorgonzola and the best minestrone soup, ever.
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
Poetry came later in my life. I am particularly (though not exclusively) drawn to female poets and very thankful to have discovered the work of Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton and Jo Shapcott, among others. But the real reason I found any of them at all is due to another poet, Sylvia Plath, whose work I came across and studied in some depth a few years back.
Plath is now the poet I treasure the most, the one I hold close, the writer I just couldn’t do without. And it is because of her that I have learned to love this genre so much. I had read and enjoyed Plath’s novel The Bell Jar years ago; I’d happened on her lovely poem, Sheep in Fog, too. But finding Ariel was the revelation. This dazzling masterpiece, Plath’s brilliant legacy, is a collection of poems written in the period leading up to her suicide on a freezing, bleak, London morning in February 1963.
In the months before her death, although seriously depressed following the break-up of her marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, Plath was creatively on fire, producing a molten, unending flow of astonishing poetry. As she herself said of this period in her poem, Kindness: ‘The Blood jet is poetry, there is no stopping it…’ The joyous Morning Song, hauntingly beautiful The Moon and the Yew Tree, disturbing Daddy, the moving The Edge (Plath’s final poem). They’re all in this book. Please read it.
Vanessa Bell’s Family Album compiled by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett
Never going to happen but, if I were to go on Mastermind, my specialist subject would be the Bloomsbury Set. All down to this odd little find at a remainder bookshop many years ago. VBFA is a collection of black-and-white photographs taken by artist Vanessa Bell between 1900 and 1952, and offers intriguing snapshots of her family and friends, many of whom composed the group of writers, artists and intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Set. Their famed free-thinking, witty conversation and sexual intrigues have continued to fascinate long after their deaths. Popping up on the pages here you’ll find writer Virginia Woolf, art critic Clive Bell, artist Duncan Grant and writer Lytton Strachey – Vanessa’s sister, husband, lover and friend, respectively. Thanks to this book, I developed an obsession with the Bloomsbury Set, a passion for Virginia Woolf’s writing and a real appreciation of the art of Duncan Grant, Vanessa and the vastly underrated Dora Carrington. It also gave me a massive appetite for biographies (particularly any on this bunch) and I can’t recommend Quentin Bell’s magnificent work on Woolf, his aunt, enough.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Take me on holiday, lie me on a sofa, crush me onto a rush-hour tube and what’s my go-to read? It’s got to be crime. If there’s a serial killer on the loose, a grim autopsy clue to ponder or a dysfunctional detective in the mix, I’ll take them all. Bring on dark Mo Hayder, forensically driven Patricia Cornwell, cunning Agatha Christie or Scandi noir’s darling Karin Fossum. Any crime considered. And because people know I love them, I often get gifted hardbacks of the genre. Bad idea, as they’re often big reads (crime writers have a lot to explain) and I’ve nearly concussed myself several times, falling asleep over heavy books in bed. So, mostly, I keep my crimes to myself on a Kindle. Except for this one. Because Truman Capote’s brilliant telling of this true and callous murder of a family in rural Kansas is a book I prefer to pick up physically and read time and time again. This enthralling prototype of the non-fiction novel is a spellbinding read and who says crime novels can’t be a literary work of art? Every character and scene here is drawn with breathtaking skill and Capote’s writing throughout is some of the richest I’ve ever come across. A sad tragedy has been spun into what is possibly the best crime book ever. And if you’re a crime newbie, In Cold Blood is a fine place to start.
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