THE BOOKS THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES
We may not all have a book in us but, chances are, we all have one that we can’t forget and that shapes our thinking. Four well-known women reveal to us how they were transformed by the power of words
How the power of words affected these four famous women
This book made me realise that what’s happening today is tomorrow’s history
‘I made a promise to myself to live every day to the full’
Actor Amanda Redman says Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks helped her understand how lives were affected by war.
The start of Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is about love in Edwardian society. At first, the characters are very stiff, but then their stuffiness is blown apart by the horror of the First World War.
The story follows Stephen, a British soldier on the front line in France, and in tandem, his granddaughter Elizabeth as decades later she tries to discover more about what he went through.
Faulks’s depiction of war, especially of slaughter in the trenches, brings it to life in a way that affected me deeply. I’d never read such descriptive literature, and couldn’t sleep at night for thinking about what I’d just read. His portrayal of terror on the battlefield is so powerful.
It suddenly hit home that war wasn’t something you just read about in history
books or saw in black and white films but something that really happened to people like me. It made me realise that what’s happening today is tomorrow’s history, and I made a promise to myself to live every day to the full.
The novel also showed me how compassion and simple kindness can change someone’s life for the better, and inspired me to volunteer for the British Red Cross and support the RAF veterans’ Guinea Pig Club.
I couldn’t live without books. I read in bed every night before I go to sleep. Before I bought a Kindle, my husband, Damian, and I used to take an extra suitcase on holiday for my books. I’m a fast reader, so I’d devour the novels, then leave them for others to read and fill the empty case with gifts to bring home.
As I love crime thrillers, I seek out authors such as Val Mcdermid and Liz Nugent; intrigue and mystery appeal to me. I also enjoy biographies and autobiographies. I’m just finishing Michelle Obama’s Becoming, and Lindsey Hilsum’s book on the war correspondent Marie Colvin is waiting on my bookshelf.
Amanda supports the British Red Cross campaign #Onekindthing. Find out more at redcross.org.uk/one-kind-thing
I wish I could spend a year on a desert island surrounded by books
I love being transported away by reading
‘Literature helped me recognise it was okay to be me’
Thomasina Miers, chef and Wahaca co-founder, found a sense of belonging and her passion after reading Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude.
When I was 16, I read One Hundred Years Of Solitude; I was studying Spanish and had a wonderful teacher who introduced me to Latin American fiction. In many ways, the book became a vehicle for me to escape. I was at a very academic school and struggled to fit in. Life at home was equally uncertain. My parents struggled for money; my father was an electrician and when his business didn’t work out, they thought we might have to sell the house. But when I read that book, I found refuge.
I was comforted by Márquez’s characters, who are each flawed and, ultimately, different. They’re not all successful; each generation struggles to survive and we see their weaknesses. It showed me that life isn’t easy for anyone, and that there are many realities and ways you can live. It’s not all black or white, success or failure. When you’re a teenager, you’re desperate to be like everyone else, so reading about these multifaceted characters made me recognise that it was okay to just be me.
I fell in love with Latin American literature and, aged 18, I travelled to Mexico. I spent three months exploring, which shaped the rest of my life. I’d always loved cooking and I discovered this vibrant country full of extraordinary food – fresh salsas and tacos filled with edible flowers – all of which influence the food in my restaurants today.
Sometimes, I wish I could spend a year on an island surrounded by books. I pack about six in my suitcase when I go on holiday, but never get through them all. The secret, I’ve discovered, is to go away with the kids’ friends. We drive to Wales or Scotland, where we hire a big house for everyone, then they play and I read!
Wahaca has launched a new summer menu that’s available to try now; wahaca.co.uk
‘This is a book about food and love; the most amazing things in the world’
Celebrity chef Lisa Faulkner gave Laura Esquivel’s passionate novel Like Water For Chocolate to her fiancé John Torode.
Ienjoy a good love story and the passion in Like Water For
Chocolate appeals to me. I was 19 when I read it, a couple of years after I’d spent time working in Mexico, where it is set. It’s a book about food and love; the most amazing things in the world.
I love the recipes in the book, and the sentiment that when you cook with love it goes into your food. I think that’s true.
In my second cookbook, I did an ode to the Fried Custard Squares recipe. They’re not pretty to look at, but they taste lovely. I take out the cinnamon and put in vanilla sugar.
I bought a copy of the book for my fiancé, John Torode, when we first got together and read it myself for the second time. I enjoyed it just as much as before.
I have always loved reading. I remember childhood holidays when my mum and dad would pack about three big books. They would sit on the beach reading, and then me and my sister would read on the beach, too; things such as Milly-molly-mandy or The
Famous Five books. I got used to being transported away by them.
Relaxing for me now is reading or cooking with John. We make a lot of Asian food together and I love a traybake; they are so easy. It’s about getting as much fresh food in my daughter as possible.
John and I are getting married in the UK later this year and have
started the wedding planning. We won’t be cooking then; we will let someone else do the work!
Recently, I’ve written my own book about my journey to become a mother, including going through IVF. I now have a wonderful daughter, who I adopted but, before that, things were really up and down; it was hard. I wanted to write something very honest that could be a friend to women who are going through a similar thing. It can be a lonely place, and I wanted to write a book of hope.
Meant To Be (Ebury) by Lisa Faulkner is out now
‘This novel made me look at the world differently’
For actor Sarah Hadland, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird had a profound effect, especially when it came to her career.
When I first read To Kill A Mockingbird at school, it blew me away. The line ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’ made such an impression on me. That sentiment is so important, especially as an actor because you are portraying things you may have never been through. It made me look at the world differently.
If you are young, the book makes you look at your parents. You want them to be like Atticus; good and fair. You want an Atticus Finch in your life; a role model who does the right thing, even if it makes them unpopular. The morals of being a decent person and treating everyone equally are things that always stand.
It’s a huge book for me; I always have a copy to hand. When I auditioned for theatre college, I had to prepare a speech and I chose the scene where Scout goes to a pageant dressed as a ham.
I revisited the book earlier this year for my role in Admissions. My husband in the show was black and I played the mother of a biracial son; it was all about race and how people face discrimination. Some of the topics in the play relate to the book, so it was interesting going back to the novel through that lens.
I’ve always loved reading. Many of my childhood memories are wrapped up in books. When I was about three, I had a bookshelf that was low to the floor so I could reach it, and it was filled with books like the Moomintrolls series.
I have about five books by my bed at any one time. If I’m working, I read things I can dip in to. At the moment, I’m reading
How To Fail by Elizabeth Day and Natives by Akala. If a book’s good, you immerse yourself in that world and it takes you out of everyday life, and that’s so relaxing.
Sarah stars in The Queen’s Corgi, in cinemas now
You want a role model like Atticus Finch in your life