BOOKS SPECIAL
Some of our favourite authors talk books with woman&home, and give us all the inspiration we need for our Christmas gift list
Joanna is the author of 17 highly acclaimed bestselling contemporary novels, including
A Village Affair,
The Choir and The Rector’s Wife. She lives in London, where she still writes her novels in longhand. She now has a study – previously, she wrote at kitchen tables, “partly because, out in the country, the kitchen was the warmest place,” she explains.
What are you doing this Christmas?
I shall probably go to one of my daughters this Christmas. I always spend Christmas with a member of my family, and it usually means a minimum of eight people because there are now, including the younger generations, so many of us. as to traditions, they are pretty conventional – probably church, early dinner rather than lunch, always a walk at some point and always extra guests for dinner, particularly those who might end up having a rather bleak time on their own. and boxing Day means a huge walk, even if it ends up in a pub – and I mean huge. Five miles minimum. Which book will you be giving as a present this Christmas? as far as books as presents go, I tailor the book to the recipient – possibly the new sarah Perry, Melmoth (serpent’s tail), to a daughter, and The Silence of the Girls (Viking), the new novel by Pat barker, for my sister, for example.
Which book would you like to receive? to be perfectly honest,
I would be thrilled to be given absolutely anything, especially a book that the donor had chosen and that was slightly outside my comfort zone.
Which book has influenced you the most? Different books have influenced me powerfully at different times, as I’m sure they have done for every other reader on the planet. so from beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester when I was three years old, to Émile Zola’s The Masterpiece, which I read this summer, the influence of books has been enormous, particular, significant and never-ending.
Joanna’s latest novel, an unsuitable Match (Pan), is out now