The audiobooks Isabel has been enjoying in lockdown:

Sally Rooney – Normal People

Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Titles by Elly Griffiths

 

The books and authors Isabel read as a child:

The Rainbow Reading Scheme – ‘romped through it’ to get to books of her own choice

E. Nesbit – The Enchanted Castle

Dr. Seuss books

Frances Hodgson Burnett – The Secret Garden

Edward Lear

Spike Milligan – A Book of Milliganimals

Andrew Lang – Fairy Books

“Books and reading were always part of my backdrop.”

 

The books Isabel enjoyed as a teenager:

Virginia Andrews – Flowers in the Attic (the subsequent titles in the Dollanganger series)

Novels by Stephen King

Stephen King – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

On Flowers in the Attic: “…the book that reignited me with reading.”

 

Recommended short story collections:

Pam Houston – Cowboys are my Weakness

Alice Munro – Open Secrets

Gothic horror titles by Shirley Jackson

“Short stories are like a photograph – a really rewarding photograph.”

 

Books that Isabel has been moved by:

Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong

Fred D’Aguiar – The Longest Memory

On Birdsong: “I felt like I was utterly immersed in this period…I wept.”

 

Books featuring female relationships:

Oyinkan Braithwaite – My Sister the Serial Killer

Dodie Smith – I Capture the Castle

Joan Lindsay – Picnic at Hanging Rock

On I Capture the Castle: “A comfort read.”

 

The books and authors that influenced Isabel:

Patrick Suskind – Perfume

Ian McEwan – The Cement Garden

Novels by Margaret Atwood

On Margaret Atwood: “I love the way that she presents other worlds.”

 

Extra books and authors that Isabel mentioned:

Staying Human – New Poems for Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley

 

Most of these titles (and all of Isabel’s novels) are available to order via our library catalogue.