The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Like trying to name a favourite-ever song, it is impossible to single out an all-time favourite book, but this one is always among the top of my list. I read this years ago, when I was not long out of university, and it struck a chord on multiple levels; most predominantly, for the feeling of disconnection experienced by each of the main characters. Coe’s multi-layered narrative follows a group of university friends as they move onwards in their post-education lives as young adults, all retaining the common ground of varying issues with sleep. I have had my own troubles with sleep over the years – vivid dreams, recurring nightmares, sleep walking and insomnia – and I find the subject of sleep conditions and how they affect a person’s ‘waking’ life fascinating. But the book is more than this – it is funny, touching, heartfelt, and the way in which the separate storylines come together for the denouement is cleverly executed. I shall return to it one day for what may well be a fifth read.
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
I just love this book. It’s one of those ones that stayed with me for a long time after I had finished reading it, as though the characters were people from my own life – I felt bereft when it was over. I remember staying awake until 4am to finish it, despite not wanting it to end, and I blubbed my eyes out in a way that not many books – or films – have ever made me cry. The concept of the book is so unique (imagine the experience of meeting your partner at various points in your life and at different stages of theirs) and it manages to incorporate the sci-fi feature of time travel in a way that is somehow plausible and credible. The structure of the narrative is incredibly clever in its complexity, and the fact that it is a debut novel is astonishing. If I am ever asked which book I wish I had written, The Time Traveller’s Wife is it.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend
I really should have re-read this book – or any in the series (perhaps the whole series!) during lockdown. It is brilliantly funny – I love the (mostly unintentional) sarcasm and permanently disgruntled nature of Adrian, who at just 13 (and ¾ ) is wrangling with the unrequited love of Pandora while trying to get the BBC to take notice of his poetry. The cultural references capture an era and a mood so perfectly, and despite the book being published in the year I was born, I feel as though I lived this decade as an older child. Sue Townsend is expert at encapsulating the zeitgeist of early 1980s Britain (from the point of view of a young teen, at least), and she continues to capture social and political climates throughout the whole Adrian Mole series with acerbic wit.
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson
This is another brilliant series. Atkinson blends twisty crime plotting with literary prose, and Jackson Brodie is a compelling protagonist. I love all the books in this series, but this is the one I have found myself returning to – perhaps for the character of 16-year-old Reggie, who with a dead mother and a criminal brother becomes the unlikely hero of the story. There is a sarcastic wit about Atkinson’s writing that appeals to me: it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, despite the fact that it deserves to.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Readers are divided on Dickens’ novels, and there are some I have started and given up on (Hard Times really delivers what its title promises). Great Expectations is a thematic masterpiece: love, loss, loyalty, betrayal, revenge, redemption – there is something to appeal to every reader, and something for every reader to relate to in some way. It has a beautiful moral message about family and forgiveness. My dad bought me a beautiful old set of Dickens novels as a birthday present years ago, and there are some I still haven’t read. I’m not sure I’ve ever read this particular copy of Great Expectations, but the edition I still have from school now has pages falling out of it.
Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughter in South Wales, where her series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. Her debut novel The Girls in the Water is an Amazon UK top 30 bestseller, and top 5 bestseller in the Amazon US chart.
Her first psychological thriller, The Divorce, was published in July 2019. The second, The Argument, was published December 10th 2019 and The Accusation was published June 9th 2020. Her latest novel, The Playdate is out now.
