The Books of My Life

I’ve been a reader of The Guardian newspaper in the UK for a long time, so I’m familiar with the feature Books of My Life, but as the people being asked were already authors or had some other form of celebrity, I never gave it any more thought. Actually, that’s not strictly true. I did think about it. But the books they listed were ones I’d not heard of, or were achingly high brow, or ones I didn’t like, yadda yadda… so I decided it wasn’t for me. Then the lovely Kari did one and it inspired me to give it a go, and I gained the unexpected bonus of finally identifying the childhood book which has been a puzzle for oh so long.

What is your earliest reading memory?

For a long time I had a memory, but I wasn’t sure if it was a book, a film, or whether I’d conflated two separate memories. Today, I decided to ask Google to help me find out, and am so pleased to have found the book which fits my memory. The book is Number 9: The Little Fire Engine by Wallace Wadsworth. These were the images and the bit of the story I remembered…

What was your favorite book growing up?

I was a voracious reader from a relatively young age and read everything I could get my hands on. We lived in India at the time and, if there were public libraries, I didn’t know about them. Instead my parents bought paperbacks – a lot of paperbacks – for themselves, and for me. I read my way through many an Enid Blyton series, but my favourites were the Adventure series – although I couldn’t now pick just one.

Apart from their availability, England was spoken of as “home” (even by my mother who’d grown up in India) and the books presented a picture of an England I didn’t yet know, while also being more exciting than cozy.

What was the book that changed you as a teenager?  

I went to boarding school aged 12, where I read a massive amount of romance – some better quality that others, but all voraciously consumed without critique. There was also a lot of fiction in the school library based during the second world war, so much that I wondered if the books were intended for a boys school. But I read all of it too, with as little attempt at critique as with the romance. The school set texts were pretty uninspiring and led (I suspect) to my avoidance of classics. At home, I read my parents’ books – mostly thrillers and police procedurals, including some books inappropriate for my age in the earlier years (Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and Valley of the Dolls being two examples).

If there was anything which put me on a path to my current love of literary fiction, it was probably the Russian literature I read as a teen. I can’t now recall who suggested I try it (I suspect it may’ve just been trendy) but between ages 14-16, that’s what I read: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak. I’ve not read one since, although I’ve been considering a re-read of War and Peace for some years now. Maybe one day I’ll have the time…

Who was the writer who changed your mind?

Kim Stanley Robinson, when I read his book Red Mars. I’d always avoided science fiction (as opposed to sci-fi), presuming I would find it geeky, turgid and dull – instead I found it absolutely fascinating, despite being brain-hurty for a science dud like myself. I’m hugely grateful to @breakerofthings for opening up this genre to me. I’ll admit having to space out reading such weighty tomes to allow my poor brain to recover in between!

What was the book that made you want to be a writer?

Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale – coincidentally also the first of his books I read. The central character is a young girl attending a private boarding school in England and, despite the book being based on the author’s experience of a rather grand boys boarding school, the whole thing chimed with my own experience of boarding school. He also beautifully brought the female character alive within the supporting cast of young gay men (which was his boarding school experience) that I thought, I’d love to be able to do that. His books are more contemporary than literary fiction, telling stories about people who feel real – and for the first time – I thought maybe, just maybe, I could do that. I later learned quite how long he’d been writing, about the years he’d spent building up a database of characters, observing human traits and behaviour, and ended up with crushing doubts all over again.

What is your comfort read? 

I don’t have just one book to perform this role. Most recently it’s been the Three Pines series from Louise Penny. In the past, it’s been the thrillers of Dick Francis, and the Harry Potter series from J K Rowling. I’ve read Dick Francis’ books so many times I’ve lost count; they were my father’s favourites, and I recently realised I’ve not read one since his death ten years ago.

What is the book you could never read again? 

Hmmm… tricky. If I don’t like the look (or sound) of a book, I don’t read it. The last time I had to read a book was in school, and the humour it was purported to have went right over my head. While I probably should try to read it again to see if my grown-up self sees and appreciates the humour, I’m pretty confident I’ll not bother to repeat the experience of reading The History of Mr Polly by H G Wells, as there’s others of his books I’d rather read first.

What is the book you discovered later in life?

Persuasion by Jane Austen. I was convinced I’d read everything she’d written, only to listen to an extract of this on a sleep app, and knew I’d have remembered the biting wit demonstrated in it – so bought a copy immediately. It is, indeed, as good as it’s purported to be.

What is the book you’re currently reading?

I’ve just started Sebastian Barry’s The Newer World. He’s one of my favourite authors and only one of his books didn’t reach the highest of heights for me. So far, so good with this one.

What is the book you haven’t found yet? 

Mine, I suppose. Like Kari, I’ve been working on various bits of writing on and off for a while now, one of which is a family memoir. Since my mother’s death, I’m even more determined to complete it – now I just need to work on making the time to do so.

What books might appear in a similar list of your life?

© Debs Carey, 2027