The author on the power of folktales, being inspired by Ulysses – and the book that every woman should read
My earliest reading memory
The summer my middle sister was born, my mum and I would walk to the shops at Cherryvalley, in east Belfast, to do her messages, and she’d buy me the latest issue of Storyteller, illustrated tales from around the world. It came with a cassette tape of actors reading the stories, a ding to tell you when to turn the page. My favourite was a Japanese folktale called The Goblin Rat. I was only just two, but I listened to it, entranced and terrified, until I could recite it by heart.
My favourite book growing up
Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series. I first read them aged 10 – I’ve read the title book every midwinter since, and read them last year with my own then-10-year-old son. They tell a haunting story of the age-old battle between the forces of dark and light, weaving in Arthurian legend, shot through with an adult melancholy that makes them as compelling now as then.
