MY SIX BEST BOOKS
DILLIE KEANE, 65, is best known for her work with the cabaret trio Fascinating Aida. She has appeared in productions of Me And My Girl and Present Laughter and tours in Grumpy Old Women To The Rescue… from March 28. grumpyoldwomenlive.com MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA
by Arthur Golden
Vintage, £9.99 I started reading this in Waterstones and an hour later I was still standing there. It’s a fascinating story about how a poor girl eventually becomes a geisha and the rivalry with the other people being trained up. It was an immersion in a completely “other” culture. GILEAD
by Marilynne Robinson
Virago, £8.99 Jenny Eclair was on a judging panel, hating this, and asked me if it got any more exciting. I said: “No.” It’s a meditation on life and death, about a dying pastor who wants to write about his life for his young boy. It’s moving and beautiful. BALLET SHOES
by Noel Streatfeild
Puffin, £6.99 A sweet book. The children in it are adopted by their great uncle who’s an absent-minded professor and they have to start earning. They walk along the Cromwell Road a lot and when I came to drama school in London, I chose Lamda because it was on the Cromwell Road. REACHING TIN RIVER
by Thea Astley
Out of print A lovely Australian book that I read out there. It had a big effect because I was very down at the time, having just finished a relationship. It’s about somebody coming to terms with not being able to do what they want to do. A WORLD OF STRANGERS
by Nadine Gordimer
Bloomsbury, £9.99 About a white guy who becomes friends in South Africa with a black Gatsby figure who just wants to party and doesn’t want to be politicised. It makes the Englishman change his mind about who he is. THIS CHARMING MAN
by Marian Keyes
Penguin, £7.99 I did Celebrity Eggheads and didn’t know Keyes was Irish. My friend from Edinburgh rang me, really shocked. I said I didn’t read chick lit and she said: “Don’t be such a snob.” So I promptly went out and got this. It’s about a charismatic politician who is abusive. I’ve become a big fan.