Best books… Cath Kidston

The designer picks her favourite reads. She will be at the Festival of Gardens and Nature in County Laois, Ireland, talking about her geranium-based beauty brand C.Atherley, on 20 April (festivalofgardensandnature.com)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960 (Arrow £8.99). I read this as a teenager and it’s probably the first book I really understood as a moral tale – one to return to again and again.

The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch, 1954 (W&N £9.99). Intrepid tales of four extraordinary 19th century women and their adventures and love affairs in the Middle East – Jane Digby being my best, as she travelled man-byman across Europe to end up with her rose garden and young husband in Damascus.

Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier, 1941 (Virago £9.99). Du Maurier is a favourite writer of mine and as a teenager I loved this novel – a gentle romantic thriller with a perfect pirate hero.

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, 2010 (Vintage £12.99). I was very moved by this book and the beautifully told journey of a set of netsuke belonging to de Waal’s Jewish family, and how they travelled through so much turmoil between 1871 and 2009.

The Quest for Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy, edited by Hugo Vickers, 2018 (Hodder £12.99). I love biographies, and the wit and detail in this one are just brilliant, with all those fabulously eccentric royal cousins.

Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns, 2005 (Harper Perennial £14.99). Rock tales of Laurel Canyon in the 1970s. I have always been fascinated by this generation of musicians, and Hoskyns has a great way of writing about them. Neil Young seems to be the astute one among his contemporaries.

The Impatient Pen by Nicky Haslam, 2019 (Zuleika £22.99). Nicky has the most observant eye for detail and a marvellous knack for bringing people to life. Each of these interviews is a delight – a gem of a book.