THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
Books have a magical ability to alter the course of the reader’s future. A beloved childhood story could spur on a young girl’s passion for writing. A straight-talking self-help book might inspire a down-onher-luck entrepreneur to give it one more shot. The scent of your most-treasured tome has the power to transport you back to the time you last picked it up – the memory of where you were, who you were and how you felt burning vividly in your mind. To celebrate the launch of the ELLE Book Club, we asked these authors and bookworms to share their most cherished page-turners
THE WITCHES by Roald Dahl was the first truly dark piece of writing I ever came across as a child and it scared me to death. Until then, my reading had been limited to books where everything had always worked out in the end, and the discovery that there was in fact a different path – characters that didn’t have a happy-everafter – was shocking and revelatory.
The book was a birthday present when I was eight, and it haunted me from my bookshelf for years. Since then, I’ve obviously come across far more confronting books, but even as an adult I still experience a fear hangover when I see that novel. Nothing has ever come close to being as frightening as the anecdote about a little girl trapped in a painting.
But The Witches was a rite of passage for me. That sense of menace and foreboding teased out over the pages has stayed with me decades later. It has swayed my reading choices ever since, and influenced the writing of my first novel, The Dry. I still prefer characters to get their happy ending, but I like it best when they walk through a touch of darkness to find it.
The Witches shaped me in a way that I think can only happen as a child, because it was part of my journey to becoming a reader for life. As an adult I have come across novels that have moved and inspired me, but I believe it’s what you read or don’t read as a child that determines whether you grow up to be a book lover. It’s that exposure to reading in childhood that cements it as a lifelong passion, and I’m so glad that I came across books like The Witches when I did. Jane Harper is the author of The Dry ($32.99, Macmillan Australia)
I was 12 or 13 when I first discovered Evelyn Waugh and, in the space of six months, read pretty much everything he wrote. I loved the glimpse it gave me into English eccentricity and humour, as well as his darkness and simultaneous silliness. His characters’ names especially stood out for me as quite, quite genius – Miles Malpractice, Agatha Runcible, Basil Seal, Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, Mr Joyboy, et al. I recently re-read VILE BODIES and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, and loved them just as much through fresh eyes. I also bought a 1964 edition of THE ORDEAL OF GILBERT PINFOLD, which I’d not read before, and loved that as well. My Etiquette collection, which we showed at Australian Fashion Week way back in 2000, was inspired by one of his quotes: “Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.” Karen Walker, fashion designer
Romochka woke up in the solid darkness of the night. He had never experienced true darkness. No streetlight filtered in through blinds; no orange clouds glowed through gauze. He held his hand in front of his face and could see no dim fingers.
DOG BOY
by Eva Hornung is the story of a four-year-old boy in Moscow who is abandoned by his mother at the start of winter. The starving boy follows a stray dog to her lair, and survives by becoming a member of the dog pack. Apparently the novel was inspired by the real-life story of a boy who was taken in by dogs.
As a writer, I was awed and inspired by Hornung’s vivid and visceral writing. On a personal level, I came to a whole new understanding and respect for dogs, but I was most moved by her portrayal of a scared, vulnerable child finding safety and nurturing with a dog pack. I think I was particularly affected by the story because I read it soon after becoming a mother. (My daughter, Amelia, was born in 2010.) I had expected that I’d feel fiercely protective of my own child, but hadn’t realised how aware – painfully aware – I’d become of all children who are in danger or neglected.
I’ve thought a great deal about our communal responsibility for the children around us. When should we step in if we see a child who is in danger? And how far should we go to protect such a child? These are the questions posed in my novel Promise, which was hard to write at times, but ultimately uplifting.
I re-read Dog Boy the other day and it was, again, profoundly moving, unsettling and inspiring. It resonates with me on so many levels and is what I call a “top-shelf book” – it’s always on the top shelf of my bookcase, to refer to or simply pull out and remember the experience of reading it. Sarah Armstrong is the author of Promise ($32.99, Macmillan Australia) Cruising up Madison, stopping at a light in front of Barneys, and Bill Cunningham snaps my picture, yelling out, “Is that a Vespa?” and I give him thumbs-up and he’s standing next to Holly, a curvy blonde who looks like Patsy Kensit, and when we smoked heroin together last week she told me she might be a lesbian, which in some circles is pretty good news, and she waves me over wearing velvet hotpants, red-and-white-striped platform boots, a silver peace symbol and she’s ultra-thin, on the cover of Mademoiselle this month, and after a day of doing shows at Bryant Park she’s looking kind of frantic but in a cool way. My favourite book is GLAMORAMA by Bret Easton Ellis. I used to be in a book club with a group of friends and this is one of the first we read. It’s an exaggerated and fantastical account of the celebrity and yuppie culture and fashion industry of the ’90s. Really graphic and extreme, but so addictive and exciting.
Henry Holland, designer
Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship.
THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY by Alain de Botton introduced me to the epicurean philosophy of achieving happiness through friendship, freedom and thought. I read it during my studies at COFA [now UNSW Art & Design] and it inspired my final work, which incorporated those three pillars. I saw him speak recently, and it was so special. Sarah Gittoes, Sarah & Sebastian designer The Bolter came to see me while I was still in the Oxford nursing home where my baby had been born and where Linda had died. “Poor Linda,” she said, with feeling, “poor little thing. But, Fanny, don’t you think perhaps it’s just as well? The lives of women like Linda and me are not so much fun when one begins to grow older.” I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings by protesting that Linda was not that sort of woman. “But I think she would have been very happy with Fabrice,” I said. “He was the great love of her life, you know.” “Oh, dulling,” said my mother sadly. “One always thinks that. Every, every time.” I’ve been obsessed with the Mitfords since I was a teenager, and I’m sure I’ve read both LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE and THE PURSUIT OF LOVE a hundred times each. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to chick lit, because Nancy Mitford was so clever in her observations, so witty in her phrasing and so genius at dispensing ridiculously irrelevant yet somehow sage pieces of wisdom, that she probably completely ruined the genre for me before it even existed (a bit like Uncle Matthew in the books, who says, “My dear Lady Kroesig, I have only read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It’s so frightfully good I’ve never bothered to read another”). The magic in reading any of Mitford’s works is that her writing is so alive your inner voice will speak to you in a plummy 1930s accent for ages after, hon or counter-hon. Justine Cullen, ELLE editor-in-chief
“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive – it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?”
I’ll go back to the beginning: my first hardback copy of ANNE OF
GREEN GABLES. Like so many girls before me, it was the first “big” book I read (not impressing my Year 1 teacher, who told my parents that a basketball, and not more books, was what I needed).
Everything about Anne (spelled with an “e”) Shirley wowed me. From the first moment, I endeavoured to be like her in every aspect of my life. I insisted that my best friend be my “bosom” buddy, I practised whipsmart retorts and I fell truly, madly, deeply in love with Gilbert Blythe. Of course, just like Anne, I tended to treat boys with wrath and scorn; I once found great delight in treading
a love heart lolly into the asphalt in front of the trembling Year 3 boy who had given it to me. And once I had grown up a little, it was the deep thread of Anne and Gilbert’s URST (unresolved sexual tension) that I realised had shaped my romantic view of the world. I admit to losing interest in the series once Anne and Gilbert declared their love for each other – I have always been more inclined to dramatic heartbreak and unrequited love.
But even more than ideas of friendship and love, Anne showed me that it was a wonderful thing to be your own person, to make mistakes and to celebrate successes. Anne gave me permission to delve deep into my imagination and rejoice in it. She taught me it was okay to be dramatic and clever and talk too much: “If you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?” Anne and her creator,
LM Montgomery, helped shape who I am, how I love and why I’m incurably curious. I remain, as Anne would say, “utterly devoted” to this book.
Kate Mildenhall is the author of Skylarking ($24.99, Black Inc), out August 1
Set in the ’70s and ’80s in India, one of my favourite countries, A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry is magnificent and moving. Following four interwoven human relationships, it’s a heart-wrenching novel guaranteed to make you cry, and captures all the inhumanity, turmoil, integrity and triumph of India. A life-changing read.
Becky Cooper, Bec & Bridge designer The truth is there’s no deep, dark secret to unleashing your best work and finding your sweet spot. Though not easy, it begins with the decision to build practices that help you scan your life for areas where you might be growing stagnant, and to help you pour more of who you are into your work. Your legacy is built one decision at a time.
When I first read the title of Todd Henry’s DIE EMPTY, I thought, “Oh, I don’t want to die empty! That sounds horrible!” But the book recommendation came from someone I respect and deeply trust, so I bought the digital version and got reading. Within moments, I realised my mistake – I couldn’t read this book as a digital version. Not this kind of book. This is the kind of book that changes lives, shifts mindsets and inspires action.
This experience needed the real book, in my hands, with sweet moments of pausing between sentences, highlighting passages, underlining insights, writing in the margins and dog-earing pages. When the hardcover book arrived, I read it cover to cover, and by the end I thought, “Oh my goodness, yes – I want to die empty.”
Henry encourages – no, urges – us to show up every day and create. He says, “Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside you.” He encourages us to be focused, mindful and conscious of where, how and why we invest our time and energy into our daily tasks, our work, our lives, so that we can get the most out of our strengths, our “one-of-a-kind combination of passions, skills and experiences”, and create the most value and impact in our work. Henry writes, “If you relinquish that power, then it will never see the light of day and you will always wonder ‘what if?’”
This book reminded me to keep showing up and stepping up in my business, my creativity and my life. It inspired me to keep creating for creativity’s sake; not for accolades, but because I felt called to do it anyway. It was a reminder that creativity doesn’t always feel comfortable, and to revel in that.
Cassie Mendoza-jones is the author of You Are Enough ($18.99, Hay House)
It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.
I became a thief when I was 10 years old. The reason for my foray into the seedy criminal underbelly of society had come the previous week, on a visit to one of my grandmother’s friend’s houses for afternoon tea. I like to imagine that many great illicit exploits are hatched in the homes of petite, white-haired women over Earl Grey tea and lamingtons.
I remember her home well – the overgrown garden that hid it from the road, the upstairs sewing room filled with swathes of fabric and creepy, half-finished dolls, the huge wooden fork that hung from the kitchen wall.
What I don’t remember is the particular conversation I was having with my grandmother when she banned me from ever reading HARRY POTTER. It would have had something to do with religion, I think. Grandma and her friend – indeed, everyone in my family at the time – were deeply, strictly religious, and strongly of the opinion that JK Rowling’s series promoted witchcraft and, by extension, the devil himself.
I’d never had any particular interest in Harry before that day. Most things that my grandmother dubbed “demonic” – the Take 40 countdown, birthday parties, Furbies, the national anthem – I was content to steer well clear of. But I’d never been expressly banned from anything before, and so I found myself quite intrigued.
I sought out a copy of HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE at school the next day. My teacher was aware of the limitations my parents’ religion placed on me – no participation in Christmas or Easter activities, and definitely, definitely no books about magic – but if he noticed me reading a forbidden book, half squirrelled away under my desk, he said nothing.
Within its tattered pages, already read and dog-eared and stained by many of my classmates, I stumbled upon what millions of children and adults alike had already discovered. It was a connection unlike anything I’d felt before. I didn’t just love Harry, I was Harry – having to hide this incredible magic I’d found from a family that didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. If this was the devil’s work, well then damn me to hell: I wanted in.
So the first thing I stole was a copy of HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS. It was the last day of school before a two-week break, and I couldn’t bear to be away from Hogwarts for that long. I was a painfully quiet and well-behaved child – or at least I had been until that afternoon, when I wrapped that book up in my bucket hat and hastily slipped it into my backpack, my tiny 10-year-old heart thrumming inside my chest.
Thus began a smuggling operation that lasted two years, during which all manner of prohibited books were stolen, consumed in secret and then returned to their rightful places. My grandmother, bless her, was frequently the one who took my sisters and me to the public library on the weekends, where I performed my tome-trafficking right under her nose.
I owe a lot to “The Boy Who Lived”, not least of all my love of stories (and probably my writing career). Harry and his creator showed me that we must fight hard for the things that matter most.
Grandma still dislikes Harry Potter (I made the mistake of leaving GOBLET OF FIRE on her dining room table once when I was a teenager – I later found it placed neatly on the ground outside her front door), but I owe a lot to her, and to my mother. For their time, for their courage and for inspiring 10-year-old me to life-altering anarchy over Earl Grey tea and lamingtons. Krystal Sutherland is the author of Our Chemical Hearts ($19.99, Penguin)
Kerry William Purcell’s ALEXEY BRODOVITCH, a monograph on the iconic graphic designer’s life and work, was gifted to me by a friend when I got my first job at a newspaper. I studied his designs like they were religion – he was nothing short of genius. I’d always wanted to work in media, but it was Brodovitch who ignited my love of magazines. Eventually I got to work at Harper’s BAZAAR, the title where Brodovitch once worked, and it was a dream come true. I still have my copy of the book, though now it’s a little tattered from all the times I pulled it down off my bookshelf for inspiration. These days it’s kept at my husband’s photographic studio, so it can inspire other people, too. Sarah Birnbauer, ELLE associate art director
The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.
I first read THE HANDMAID’S TALE when I left high school, and it’s stayed with me ever since. It was the book that introduced me to both feminism and dystopia. Margaret Atwood’s story is haunting, lyrical and deeply unsettling, shot with moments of dark comedy. #
Samantha Shannon is the author of The Bone Season ($24.99, Bloomsbury)