5 books TO MAKE YOUR HEART SING

1. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, 1949.

WHAT: Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain lives in bohemian poverty with her novelist father, stepmother Topaz and sister Rose. When the heirs to the crumbling castle where they live turn up, life will change forever.

WHY: The book mothers give daughters, wrote one critic, and Smith captures a cautionary tale of the misery of being in (unrequited) love for the first time. By Cassandra’s final diary entry, she has “captured the castle” – and our hearts.

2. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee, 1959.

WHAT: Lee’s coming-of-age memoir of how his mother, Annie, brought him and his six siblings up after their father walked out at the start of World War I. The children are rationed to berries and bread, Lee sleeping in his mother’s bed.

WHY: Later he remembers cider with Rosie Burdock: “Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire, juice of those valleys and of that time … Rosie’s burning cheeks. Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again.”

3. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, 1970.

WHAT: Twenty years of correspondence between Helene Hanff, a New York City writer, and a used-book dealer in London’s Charing Cross Road. Despite the fact they never met, they share a common passion for books.

WHY: This relationship touched the hearts of readers around the world. In the 1987 film, Judi Dench and Anne Bancroft were among the cast who “will beguile and put you in tune with mankind“, wrote The New York Times.

4. Chocolat by Joanne Harris, 1999.

WHAT: When Vianne Rocher opens a chocolaterie called La Céleste Praline in a sleepy French church-going village, she is accused by the local priest of promoting gluttony and tempting indulgence during Lent.

WHY: We are seduced by Vianne’s knack for figuring out everyone’s favourite chocolate. Juliette Binoche was perfectly cast as Vianne in the film, while Johnny Depp infuriated her as gypsy Roux, whose favourite she couldn’t nail.

5. 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino, 2014.

WHAT: Daughter of a jazzman father and recently deceased singer mother, sassy nine-year-old Madeleine Altimari is an aspiring jazz singer too. Doggedly searching for legendary jazz club The Cat’s Pajamas, she’s determined to make her on-stage debut.

WHY: Snow-flaked Philadelphia on Christmas Eve is the setting for this debut novel, in which motherless daughters get to have their dreams come true.