My LIFE in books: Romola Garai
As she takes the lead in the BBC’S adaptation of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist, the actress reveals the books that have shaped her life
MY FAVOURITE BOOK AS A CHILD WAS…
Little House In The Big
Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s the first novel I can remember reading on my own, without help. The characters built their house from logs, and had to tap them for maple syrup. The idea of putting a tap into a tree and maple syrup coming out was magic to seven-year-old me. It’s an incredibly sensual, evocative book.
MY FAVOURITE LINE FROM A BOOK IS…
“That roar which lies on the other side of silence.” It’s part of a longer quote from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. When I read that quote my heart stopped. To me, it describes exactly the experience of being conscious – aware of misery and joy – but having to ignore it all in order to exist.
THE BOOK I MOST RELATE TO IS…
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. It’s about a medium who tours uninspiring British towns trying to help people communicate with the dead. But what speaks to me is the book’s depiction of suburban Britain: new-build estates, run-down shopping centres and Premier Inns. A lot of it is set in the West Country, where I grew up, and it reminded me of my upbringing. Rural life has been stripped of its poetry, and the book brilliantly describes that.
THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY WAS…
When I read Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little
Life, I cried a lot. Ultimately, it’s about male camaraderie and friendship and how necessary it is.
THE BOOK I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ IS…
You could take any person, of any culture, of any age, and they would like Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. It’s about such essential things: poverty, finding kindness in unexpected places.
It’s a fable that transcends place.
MY FAVOURITE EVER BOOK IS…
A short novella, Foe by J M Coetzee. It’s Robinson Crusoe retold from the point of view of a female character in 17th-century London, who tries to find Daniel Foe to tell him the true story about his own book! It’s about racial politics and how novels warp history. I’ve read it four times.
THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME WAS…
The Diary Of A Provincial Lady by E M Delafield – a spoof diary of a ’50s suburban housewife. Every time I have a blue day, I reach for it. It reminds me that being a woman is a timeless struggle.
The Miniaturist will air on
BBC One in December