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I read The Little Prince in one-sitting when I was 15 and as soon as I was finished, started reading it over again. It is an incredible piece of storytelling and like an old childhood friend it holds essential reminders of what is important in life, this is a book that I will keep returning to again and again.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre set me on the path to an obsession with classic literature that eventually made me decide to study English Lit at University. With an awesome female protagonist Bronte’s novel is an all-consuming read. This book has everything: love, death, fortune-tellers, ghosts, typhus, illegitimate children and a mastiff called Pilot.
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
I stumbled upon this book when I was 21 and picked it up because I liked the title with no idea of what a huge impact Winterson would have on my life. Her writing taught me the power of words and the liberating notion that when it comes to our past there is no difference between "fact" and "storytelling". I have now read and adored all of her novels, but this book is still my favourite.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Studying English at uni had made reading feel like work for me and when I graduated it was over a year before I picked up a book just for the pleasure of it. Luckily this was that first book and it made me feel like I was 13 again, when the pages of a story could become the sum and limit of my existence. Kingsolver’s writing is beautiful and heart-wrenching – an incredible family epic.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
This is the first book that I read by Virginia Woolf, who is one of my all-time favourite authors. I love it for her portrayal of time and memory; of how a single moment can reverberate throughout an entire life. Mrs. Dalloway led me on to Woolf’s essays including A Room of One’s Own which is the most potent and influential feminist text I’ve read.
Olivia
