The books that CHANGED MY LIFE

Anthony Horowitz

Known for his children’s books as much as his novels for adults, Horowitz’s latest is James Bond tribute With A Mind To Kill. Here, he shares the books that have made him laugh, cry and think… THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME LAUGH

Roger Mcgough was the first poet I loved and his newest collection, That Awkward Age, is full of lovely comical, wry views on life. There’s a set of poems in there about the unknown husbands of famous women – Mr Godiva, Mr Joan of Arc and so on – and they really made me laugh.

THE LAST BOOK THAT MADE ME CRY

I’m not someone who particularly cries at books but one that profoundly moved me is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It’s probably the saddest the book

I’ve ever read because all the characters in it are hopeless without knowing it. It’s about a group of young people who live in an institution and their growing awareness of what the world is and of their role in it.

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED THE WAY I THINK

Hiroshima Nagasaki by Paul Ham. There’s been talk again recently of nuclear war and this book shows brilliantly how and why it happened in Japan in 1945. It changed my perception completely.

THE BOOK THAT GOT ME THROUGH A DIFFICULT TIME

Hamnet by Maggie O’farrell allowed me to escape the pandemic. The language is so beautiful, the world so perfectly realised, the characters so vivid. When I was reading it I thought of nothing else.

THE BOOK I MOST OFTEN GIVE TO OTHERS

The Flashman Papers series by George Macdonald Fraser makes a wonderful present. They’re so wellresearched, so entertaining. Both my sons read one, then read the rest immediately.