What do Writers Read?

For the second of our #TLF16 highlights post, we look at some of the books recommended by our attending authors. At the recent Triskele LitFest, we asked the 40 authors to recommend one book...

A.E. Rycart recommended “An oldie but a goodie” –– The Charioteer, a 1953 war novel by Mary Renault, significant because it features a prominent gay theme at an early date.

Jon Stenhugg recommended The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer. The Triskele authors also loved this book! Here is Gillian Hamer’s review on Bookmuse.

I would love to visit my childhood idol, Enid Blyton, with Lynda Young Spiro’s recommendation of The Magic Faraway Tree, a series of popular novels for children, taking place in an enchanted forest in which a gigantic magical tree grows – the eponymous "Faraway Tree".

Maggie O’Farrell’s (one of my fave authors) After You’d Gone was recommended by Katharine D’Souza. A riveting story that skips through time and interweaves multiple points of view … a novel of stunning psychological depth.

Elizabeth Woodcraft recommended Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys, a novel rich in Caribbean folklore and tradition and post-colonial identity politics.

Helene Halme enjoyed Marry in Haste by Debbie Young –– 15 Short Stories of Dating, Love and Marriage.

Kit Habianic loved Gift of the Raven by Catriona Troth, in which the people of the Haida Gwaii tell the legend of the raven - the trickster who brings the gift of light into the world. Canada.

Anoushka Beazley recommended The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries.

 

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, another of my favourites, along with The Kiterunner, was recommended by Guy Blythman. Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate.