MY SIX BEST BOOKS
MC BEATON, 79, is the pseudonym of author Marion Chesney for her crime novels featuring Hamish Macbeth and Agatha Raisin. The Hamish Macbeth books inspired a TV series in the 1990s and an adaptation of the Agatha Raisin stories is being filmed. Latest novel Agatha Raisin: Dishing The Dirt ( Constable, £ 14.99) is out now.
KIDNAPPED
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Penguin, £ 7.99 This really inspired me. I read it when I was young but still think it’s great. Forget the Booker Prize, storytelling is what I love and this is storytelling at its best.
MURDER MUST ADVERTISE
by Dorothy L Sayers
Hodder, £ 8.99 This Lord Peter Wimsey book is where I discovered that detective stories could also be funny – I ended up writing detective stories because I read virtually nothing else.
This is a very cynical look at advertising. You won’t believe a thing you see in an advert after reading it.
THE LIGHT OF DAY
by Eric Ambler
Out of print I like anti- heroes and there’s a ghastly one in this. He’s a nasty little crook yet you desperately want him to win through.
He gets caught up in a far bigger robbery than he has anticipated and ends up working for the Turkish secret police. It’s very funny.
COLLECTED POEMS 1909- 1962
by TS Eliot
Faber, £ 15.99 A lot of poetry is pastoral but Eliot wrote about the city and I identified with that.
Although I live in the country now I’m basically a city person because I was brought up in Glasgow in the days of trams, gaslight and fog. There’s always beauty in cities.
VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray
Vintage, £ 7.99 I have always had a sneaking sympathy for Becky Sharp as a rebellion against the sentimental heroine Amelia.
I was also fascinated by the Regency period and have written more than 100 books set in that era. The snobbery and cynicism of the time is very well executed here.
THE DUKE
by Philip Guedalla
Out of print A biography of the Duke of Wellington, this is the way history should be written. It goes at a tremendous pace but has all the facts.
Wellington was a first- class commander which is interesting because it seems he was quite sensitive.