Lucy Atkins: Books That Catch Your Imagination

‘I’m a writer’.

I’m currently judging the Costa Novel Award so am reading a huge number of contemporary novels (more than 60 in total).

I remember reading a brilliant book called Giant John by Arnold Lobel when I was five – the first book I ever read alone. It’s a really vivid memory.

I’d encourage them to read ANYTHING that catches their imagination, even if it’s a comic or the back of a cereal packet. I think the worst thing adults can do is prescribe the ‘right kind of book’ to a child, that’s the quickest way to put them off reading.

I was 8 and it was ‘a novel’ about a horse. I illustrated it and my Mum laminated it.

I stapled envelopes 8 hours a day in a factory.

1. Read 2. Take a really good creative writing course or read about writing to learn actual skills.

At the moment, I read almost more than I’d like…

Whatever books interest you – same as with children. I do think reading things because you feel you ‘ought to’ is joyless. Life is too short. I am quite lazy though, so sometimes I do make myself try novels I might shy away from, though I’m generally happy to abandon a book after about 100 pages if it bores me.

I’ve read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë more times than I’d like to admit. I just love it.

Probably American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s a great read.

Curtis Sittenfeld, Elena Ferrante, and Shirley Jackson.

I tend to gravitate towards fiction that’s both accessible and a bit literary. I get excited if there’s a new book by writers such as Kate Atkinson or Ann Patchett. I do love a good story and vivid characters but I also like the writing to be crafted and intelligent.

I believe it would be undereducated & with a very short attention span.

Curtis Sittenfeld

No, people like to hold something beautiful in their hands.

Anything that will persuade us to vote Trump out and rejoin the EU.

Rebel Pony by Patricia Leitch which I read so many times as a child – it made me a voracious reader and I suspect turned me into a writer too

Definitely too many to write here; I’d go on and on. Having said that, there are some books I do love to give to friends, such as Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson or Maggie O’Farrell’s recent autobiographical work I am, I am, I am. And right now, top of my ’to read’ list is the literary biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin.

I tend to just read whatever captures my eye – on the shelves, or by word of mouth so I have no idea really, I don’t tend to plan my reading.

Ah, no, I’d never write an autobiography!

Image Credit: Charlie Hopkinson