Earliest Memory

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL: Hans Christian Andersen
Homeless child using her last match to stay warm. Traumatised me then. Still does today.
This was considered a (literary) fairy-tale back in the day.

At School

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: Thomas Hardy
I have loved Hardy’s writing forever. This is my favourite novel by him and his recurrent
themes of doomed love and misunderstandings are beautifully portrayed here. Bathsheba &
Gabriel. Who could forget?

Favourite Novel

NORA WEBSTER: Colm Tóibín
So simple yet so complex. This Irish writer’s observations of a widow struggling to come to
terms with her husband’s death is beyond brilliant. I read the last few chapters of the book
so slowly because I couldn’t bear it to finish.

Favourite Poem

MID-TERM BREAK: Seamus Heaney:
What’s there to say. Pure. Simple. Genius. Makes me ache with sadness every time.
Interesting Fact: He was born just up the road from me.

Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

ATONEMENT: Ian McEwan
Read it on my honeymoon and cried for a day. Just couldn’t believe the twist. Briony – how
could you?
A LITTLE LIFE: Hanya Yanagihara
There’s nothing little about this book. As moving as it is long, Yanagihara’s tale of male
friendship in New York is a modern masterpiece.
NOTE: Should come with a warning. Be prepared to be haunted.

Worth a read….

LULLABY: Lela Slimani
You know the ending from the start – but Slimani’s writing is so sharp, so intense, you’ll be
digging your nails into the palms of your hands by the last page.

Just Bought….

ALL ABOUT EVIE: Matson Taylor.
More hilarity, more adventures for Evie. The hotly anticipated follow-up to The
Miseducation of Evie Epworth, All about Evie sees this 20 something misfit now working in
70s London. What could possibly go wrong for the Yorkshire lass? The freshest new writing
laden with equal dollops of humour and pathos.

My Life in Books