The book I am currently reading
Please Read This Leaflet Carefully by Karen Havelin, a life told in reverse and not your usual “illness” story. It’s a novel that reads like a memoir, the best kind that draws you in and changes the way you think about relationships. I’m about half way through. I’m also reading James Baldwin: Living in Fire by Bill V Mullen, a new biography of this fascinating man and one of life’s true heroes.
The book that changed my life
I’m still reading books that change me and I hope that never stops. My reading habits were formed by the classics so I’ve been very influenced by Arnold Bennett, Émile Zola and Graham Greene. Before that I wasn’t interested in books and never wanted to understand literature.
The book I wish I’d written
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. I read it with a sinking feeling, realising that these interweaved short stories were what I was meant to do and they were done with the simplest words to the most devastating effect. I still haven’t got over it.
The book I couldn’t finish
So many. I’ve stopped trying to finish everything although I very rarely give up before I’ve reached halfway. I made an exception for Vanity Fair by William Thackeray and watched the television series instead. Way, way too many diversions, too wordy, too of its time and I just couldn’t devote the hours necessary to get the most out of it. It was a good call. There are other books.
The last book that made me cry
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. The last few pages were absolute agony. I realised, only then, what the title meant and the whole thrust of the book and this man’s unfulfilled life. I could hardly bear it. I closed it before the end so that I didn’t have to be there with him.
The book that is most underrated
So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell – almost a novella, breaks every rule as far as point of view is concerned, meanders through time and characters and is really about a single moment in a boy’s life. I don’t know many people that have read it but it’s a small masterpiece. Also The First Bad Man by Miranda July, the story of a woman who has unravelled and who starts a bizarre relationship with her lodger. Weird, sexy and stuffed full of life.
The book that influenced me
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert because when I read it I saw how a single sentence can get you inside someone’s heart and mind.
The book I’m most ashamed not to have read
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I only read Beloved a few years ago although I had seemed to know all about it and I’d seen the film. Not the same. The Bluest Eye is Morrison’s first book and, everyone tells me, her best so this year I will get the deed one. I owe it to her.
The book I give as a gift
A Manual for Heartache by Cathy Rentzenbrink. Each chapter is written with wisdom and compassion from someone who feels OK and emotionally stable to their unhappy, depressed self and to us and says: “You feel like this, you feel rubbish, you think this won’t end but it will and this is how to get through it.” Brilliant, lump-in-the-throat writing from a warm heart: to be kept next to the bed for when you can’t sleep.
The book I’d most like to be remembered for
It’s too difficult to choose one. My Name Is Leon because it was my first and deals with issues very close to my heart. The Trick to Time because it came from a deep place and was technically challenging and Becoming Dinah because it combines my love of the classics with my personal life, with being a mixed-race girl trying to accept who she is.
My earliest reading memory
The Bible, particularly Proverbs because they are little nuggets of advice. When I was bored in church I would open it and try to relate one of the scriptures to my life. I don’t believe the Bible is the word of God, but I do believe it contains, along with some very dodgy bits, some love and poetry.
My comfort reading
My comfort reads are two comfort listens; Ciaran Hinds reading The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry and Bill Wallace reading Old Filth by Jane Gardam. I am a devotee of audiobooks. They reach you in a different way – not better, just different and for anyone who struggles with reading or holding a book, they are brilliant (and don’t forget you can use the fast-forward button). Plus they are the only books you can read with your eyes closed.
• The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal is available in paperback from Penguin (RRP £8.99). Becoming Dinah is published by Orion on 11 July (RRP £7.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p on all online orders over £15.
