I can’t remember when I started reading Agatha Christie. I think I must have been a teenager. My parents had a shelf of battered copies, and I suppose one day I must have just picked one up. Miss Marple was sometimes on the TV but this was pre-David Suchet’s marvellous Poirot, so I don’t think I necessarily associated the TV dramas with the books.

Was I hooked straight away? Can’t remember that either. But what I do know is that gradually, over the years, Agatha Christie replaced Enid Blyton as my comfort reading of choice. One of the best Christmas presents I ever had was from my husband who had patiently tracked down (on ebay) all the Christie mysteries that I didn’t have copies of – I was in raptures! I’m only sorry now that there aren’t any that I haven’t read.

They’re murder mysteries, most of them, but rather like Midsomer Murders, they’re not really scary. They’re full of stereotypical characters too, but Christie never makes it easy to work out whodunnit. I used to have to be SO disciplined when reading a new one because I was dying to turn to the last chapter to find out who the murderer was, and I almost had to staple those pages together so I didn’t give in!

There are a few I don’t like much, and a few that I find seriously creepy – Murder is Easy, Sleeping Murder, Death Comes as the End and Endless Night in particular. And then there are my favourites – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Labours of Hercules, The Big Four (my copy is so old half the pages are no longer attached) and The Seven Dials Mystery. They don’t all feature Miss Marple or Poirot – some have other amateur detectives like Tommy and Tuppence or the wonderfully named ‘Bundle’ (otherwise known as Lady Eileen) – and some just sort of unfold.

I read a lot of books, usually from the library or from book sales or festivals. Of course, I read a lot of books by people I know because I now meet quite a lot of fellow authors at various events and if they have a new book out, I will quite likely read it. But there’s something about Christie that makes me return to her again and again, even though I now know perfectly well who did it in all of her books!

Funnily enough, I’ve never wanted to try writing a crime story or a murder mystery. I find the very idea daunting, as though I’m not quite clever enough to come up with the intricate plots with their endless red herrings. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to have a go

So there you are – my life in books (and authors, technically, since I’ve sort of stretched the concept a bit!). I’m sure, given time, I could easily come up with more books that have influenced me at different times (Wuthering Heights, Looking for JJ, You Don’t Know Me, The Land of Green Ginger, the Narnia Chronicles…) but I think the basic core would remain the same.

If YOU had to pick books that have really stayed with you or had a big impact on your life, what would you choose?

Love from Jo

 I’ve read loads of Terry Pratchett’s books. Too many to list, but I can remember which I started with: Wyrd Sisters. I loved the style, which is witty and silly, and I loved the characters. In Wyrd Sisters there are three witches. Granny Weatherwax is old and tough and strict and very powerful, but she has a soft side she hides very well. Nanny Ogg makes very rude jokes and is obsessed with sex but is a sort of motherly person. And Magrat is the young witch, just starting out, whose parents wanted to call her Margaret but couldn’t spell it on the birth certificate. Even just describing them makes me smile!

Pratchett is a clever, clever writer. He takes modern, contemporary ideas and pastiches them (sort of like a mickey-take) in his Discworld stories. Maskerade is basically the story of the Phantom of the Opera, and it has a fantastic heroine who can sing in harmony with herself, LOL. Brilliant! In later books, the cities on the Disc communicate using a ‘clacks’ system, which is a series of semaphore towers – they call it ’sending a clacks’ (a play on words of a ‘fax’ – and if you don’t know what one of those is, it’s what we had before email!).

My favourite Discworld novel is ‘Mort’ which is about a boy who becomes an apprentice to Death. Yes, Death – the walking skeleton with a fine style in the use of a scythe. Death has started to wonder ‘what it’s all about, really, when you get down to it’, which, considering he’s supposed to be a concept rather than a ‘person’, is a bit awkward.

But my all-time favourite Pratchett book is one he wrote with Neil Gaiman, and it’s called Good Omens. It’s a fantastic adventure story about the on-going fight between Good and Evil, as represented by the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who have known each other for so many centuries that they’re practically friends. And then the Antichrist is born, but something goes wrong with the paperwork and he ends up being brought up by the wrong family. It’s so clever, and the plot is brilliant. And the names, too! There’s a young witch called Anathema Device (LOL!) and a naive witchfinder called Newt, who isn’t really sure what’s going on most of the time and has a knack of breaking expensive electronic equipment. Oh, it’s just wonderful, and it’s been the book I would take to a desert island for a long time. I can read it over and over again. Love it.

Next time: Agatha Christie

Love from Jo

I know, I know, I’ve got a bit lax about completing my line-up of 8. Apologies and all that, but I’m not far off giving birth now and so my brain is kind of mushy

BUT – Enid Blyton. By pure coincidence, both Michael Morpurgo and Rhiannon Lassiter have just written online articles about how Enid Blyton was banned in their houses while they were children. Blyton was not banned in my house – far from it – and I devoured her books with rampant enthusiasm. I could hardly tell you any of the individual stories, but the characterisation (easy to grasp, quite stereotyped) and the speed of the plots drove me on – more, more!

When very young, I enjoyed Naughty Amelia Jane, Mr Pinkwhistle, and Noddy. Then I moved to The Magic Faraway Tree (a huge favourite, and I named a good climbing tree in our garden after the book – wishful thinking!) and The Wishing Chair (which always slightly creeped me out – wings on its legs? And there was a horrible chapter where some awful baddie tried to cut the wings off, and that was sickening). And then I moved to the Famous Five (curiously not the Secret Seven, no idea why) and The Castle of Adventure, Island of Adventure etc etc. There was also the Five Find-Outers (I think) with a hopelessly politically incorrect character called Fatty who liked to disguise himself using a remarkable array of wigs, false teeth and makeup.

Years later, as an older teen, I used Blyton as a retreat – comfort food, if you like. Whenever I was feeling fed up, or over-tired, or under pressure, I dug out my Famous Five books (all 21 of them) and worked my way through. They’re fast reads; they don’t take long, and they’re so romantic, in terms of hidden passages, caves, being saved by Timmy the dog etc.

People are horribly snooty about Enid Blyton. I saw a drama-documentary about her a couple of years back and she didn’t seem like a very nice person, but there’s no doubt she produced an astonishing number of books, and even kids today love them. Yes, they’re dated (who says ‘gosh’ and ‘crikey’ these days?) and they have awful stereotypes, especially about race, colour and class, but they’re cracking plots, and that’s why they’re such a strong part of my reading past.

Next time: Terry Pratchett

Love from Jo

‘The Young Visiters’ was written in 1890 by a nine-year-old girl called Daisy Ashford. It was published much later in 1919 and was an instant hit. You might be surprised that such an ‘old’ book made such an impression on me, but when you read it (which I think you can actually do online here) you’ll understand why – it is HILARIOUS!

Basically, it’s a story about ’society’ or posh people, by a child. Mr Salteena, the hero of the story, has a nice young lady called Ethel staying with him – and it’s a story about romance, elopement, living in harsh conditions and all sorts of other things – but what sets it apart is the style of the writing, which has been preserved with all of its mis-spellings (including the title, did you spot it?). Here are some fantastic quotes from the book:

I am parshial to ladies if they are nice I suppose it is my nature. I am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it but cant be helped anyhow.

I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel because I am very pale owing to the drains in this house.

He moved away to the next picture. It was of a man with a fat smiley face and a red ribbon round him and a lot of medals. My great uncle Ambrose Fudge said Bernard carelessly.
He looks a thourough ancester said Ethel kindly.
Well he was said Bernard in a proud tone he was really the Sinister son of Queen Victoria.
Not really cried Ethel in excited tones but what does that mean.
Well I dont quite know said Bernard Clark it puzzles me very much but ancesters do turn quear at times.

Isn’t it brilliant? I think the reason it made such an impression on me was that it’s an actual BOOK, written by a child, that was actually published. When I came across it I was a bit older than nine, but it made me realise that publishing a book of a story you’d written was something that could actually happen! I don’t think I decided then and there to become a writer (because at that point I was more interested in becoming an actress) but I definitely read it with the feeling that ‘I could do that!’ so it was kind of inspirational. Plus my spelling was better than Daisy’s (though my stamina for writing a story of that length was definitely not good enough!) so I felt a bit superior.

If you get a chance, do click on the link above and read some of it – I guarantee it will make you laugh!

Next time: Enid Blyton

Love from Jo
PS sorry about gap between last couple of posts!

So a couple of weeks ago I posted about books being turned into films and why I can’t bring myself to watch the film of The Dark Is Rising. TDIR is actually the second book in a ’sequence’ (not a series) of five books by Susan Cooper, starting with Over Sea, Under Stone and ending with Silver on the Tree. All the books are linked together by characters and themes but you could read them separately and still enjoy them. On a simple level, they’re about the endless battle between good and evil (or Dark and Light, as they’re called here) and the various ‘weapons’ that have to be collected on the way to help the Light vanquish the Dark. The first book, for example, concerns three children who have to find the Holy Grail (which is supposedly the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, and which many people, including the mythical King Arthur, have looked for over the centuries. The best-selling book The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, was all about the quest for the Grail).

What I adore about the series is its seamless mixing of fantasy and reality. The characters, particularly the children, all feel very real – they’re not yet teenagers so there are no complicated falling-in-love subplots to distract them from the main quest – and the adult characters are suitably impressive and in some cases downright scary. My favourite is Merriman Lyon, a sort-of relative of the children’s and who is present in all five of the books. He’s a sort of scary-but-friendly grandfather figure who has special powers but not in a hey-I-can-do-magic kind of way. I also have a sneaking liking for the Rider, who is an agent of the Dark and definitely a Baddie but is also kind of charismatic and fascinating.

So, The Dark Is Rising – the second book – is about Will, who on his eleventh birthday discovers he also has unusual powers – he’s the last of the Old Ones, agents of the Light, and he has a quest of his own to find objects which will help in the battle against the Dark. The plot is brilliant, zipping backwards and forwards in time as Will has to locate these objects and keep them safe. He also has to contend with his enormous family (he’s the seventh son of a seventh son) in the run-up to Christmas, which is tricky because some of them unwittingly get involved in the battle. And there are scary bits with evil crows, and people speaking other languages without realising it, and descriptions of the weather being so cold that you have to read those bits while wrapped up in a duvet, and – well, it’s brilliant. I’ve read it many times but not recently, and writing this blog post has made me think I really must dig out the books and read them again.

When people ask me on school visits what was my favourite childhood book growing up, this is usually the first one I think of. I’m not sure if it’s my favourite overall but it made a massive impression on me and is one that I would recommend to anyone, young or old.

Next time: The Young Visiters (and yes, that’s deliberately spelt wrong!)

Love from Jo

As a girl, I was very keen on princesses and fairies and dragons and unicorns and things like that. But I liked my princesses to feel real – to feel that they were proper people with real personalities and not just airy-fairy girls who sat around looking pretty. The Ordinary Princess is a fantastic story because it’s about a princess who gets fed up with sitting around all day looking pretty (one of her fairy godmothers has ‘cursed’ her with ‘being ordinary’) and is horrified to discover her parents want her to marry some boring prince. So she escapes from her tower and runs into nearby woods and makes friends with the animals. She also builds a sort of den that she can live in but realises after a while that she really needs to earn some money so that she can buy new clothes and shoes (because hers have worn through completely).

So she gets a job (a princess! getting a job!) as a kitchen maid in a nearby palace, where she meets a servant boy who is very friendly. She tells him about her den in the woods and together they turn it into this amazing log cabin.  And THEN the servant boy turns out to be not quite who he said he was…anyway, it’s got a lovely twist in the tale and I adored the illustrations too. I mean, who wouldn’t want that beautiful purple dress on the cover?

Oh, and clearly I was influenced by crazy names again – the Ordinary Princess is called Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne – or Amy for short!

Next time: The Dark Is Rising

Love from Jo

Ah, Pippi. The nine-year-old girl who lived improbably on her own, who was impossibly strong and had two rather wet friends called Tommy and Annika. Pippi appealed to me because she was completely unafraid – and when you’re a child, so many things are scary that it’s amazing to come across a character who isn’t afraid of ANYTHING! Of course, it helped that Pippi was so strong she could lift a horse with one hand, so she could definitely take care of herself. She also had a suitcase full of gold coins, so she didn’t have to worry about money either – so two practical issues for children that were immediately swept away!

My favourite story in the series was ‘Pippi in the South Seas’ where Pippi and her friends travelled to a tropical island where they faced sharks and pirates and ate coconuts all day. I had no idea where the ’south seas’ were but I adored the romanticism of it all – clear sparkling warm water to swim in every day, coconuts and fruit falling from the trees, and hammocks and no school!

And let’s face it, who wouldn’t adore a character who proudly claims that her name is Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking?

Next time: The Ordinary Princess

Love from Jo

I had lots of books when I was growing up, and although I read (or had read to me) ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ etc, it’s other sorts of books that stand out for me. ‘Ivor the Engine’ was a favourite but I think it was mainly because my dad did great voices

But I do remember spending ages and ages looking at Richard Scarry’s books. There wasn’t a story as such – or if there was, it wasn’t the main impact of the book. No, what got me was the illustrati0n – tiny pictures of animals and people in buses, trains, cars, houses, aeroplanes…and a worm that drove an apple car (and, I remember, an applecopter?!)

I didn’t have ‘Where’s Wally’ when growing up, but I bet I’d have loved that too. I loved detail in pictures – the fact that you could look and look at the same page and keep finding something new. I loved drawing as a child and for a long time I wanted to be an illustrator myself. (I don’t think, really, I was ever good enough, and I lost interest at secondary school where my art lessons were a bit dull.)

And look! Here’s the worm in his apple car! How fantastic is he!

Next time: Pippi Longstocking

Love from Jo

PS Happy World Book Day! Are you dressing up?