HERCULE POIROT’S CHRISTMAS by Agatha Christie HarperCollins, £7.99 My daughter, who’s 13, has just read this and really enjoyed it, as I did when I was given it by my mum. There’s a lot of blood in it and as a teenager living in boring Cheam I liked the idea of something violent and unpredictable.
OSCAR WILDE by Richard Ellmann Out of print A long book that is intensely satisfying. I read it about 25 years ago and had to lug it around on the Tube. I’d read the plays at university but didn’t quite realise what an amazing character he was.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver Serpent’s Tail, £8.99 Lionel was on a series I did called Page Turners. She is unconventional and interesting. Kevin is in jail for a terrible crime and his mother is the narrator. It’s like a movie so it’s not surprising that the movie wasn’t as good.
THE STEPFORD WIVES by Ira Levin Corsair, £8.99 A dystopian, allegorical story where wives are just dolls – the prisoners and creations of men. It’s obviously Levin is saying what society has done to women.
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL by Roméo Dallaire Arrow, £11.99 A compelling autobiography by a Canadian general who was in Rwanda when nearly one million people died in the genocide. He describes having to negotiate with the people responsible for the murders. I was an Africa correspondent soon after this and the situation was a disaster.
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DEATH OF A NATURALIST by Seamus Heaney Faber, £10.99 A collection of poems in which Heaney describes the natural world. I’ve got into a routine with my 10- year-old daughter, reading her a poem each night. Poetry packs in an awful lot of emotion and if you can open it up it comes alive in front of you.