"My earliest reading memory I was six, and in the lounge in my first home in Manchester. I was sitting cross-legged on the grey carpet, in 1977, when I finished reading whichever of Enid Blyton's brilliant Secret Seven mysteries contains the mind-blowing (genuinely, for a six-year-old) twist that Emma Lane turns out to be a road and not a person."
"When I was 15, my father suggested, forcefully, that I ought to read, as well as the mystery books I loved, other books that were more serious. I found a harrowing memoir in Didsbury library by the actor Frances Farmer, called Will There Really Be a Morning?, about being forcibly committed to an asylum and kept there for years against her will. Her story of how she struggled to survive and make sense of her horrendous experiences was truly inspiring and unforgettable."
"The writer who changed my mind The life coach and self-help writer Brooke Castillo, author of Self Coaching 101 and It Was Always Meant to Happen That Way. I had no idea that my thoughts about facts were a very different thing from the facts themselves, or that we can choose to tell whatever story we want to, and find plausible, about any given set of circumstances."
A first reading memory occurred at age six in Manchester, finishing an Enid Blyton Secret Seven that revealed Emma Lane as a road. Favourite childhood books included Blyton's Secret Seven and the Five Find-Outers, then Agatha Christie from age twelve. At fifteen, a Frances Farmer memoir described forced commitment and long survival, leaving a lasting impression. Brooke Castillo's self-coaching work clarified that thoughts differ from facts and that people can choose the narratives they tell about circumstances. Sisters and Strangers inspired early fictional attempts, Wuthering Heights became a returned favourite, and Iris Murdoch and Howard Jacobson novels are frequently reread.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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