Anna Mackenzie author's reading list

Reading pile ... & great books I've known

Reading and writing

Authors are often asked what they're reading. To be a good writer, you need to be a reader (though not the reverse).

Reading teaches you what is possible, what you should avoid, what you like and what you don't.

I don't read when I'm writing a first draft – it's easier not to have more than one story in my head. But when I'm editing, I read, and once each novel is finished – done, dusted, edited, page proofed and out of my hands – I binge.

My current reading pile contains:
Daemon Voices, Phillip Pullman

The Secret Life of Nature, Peter Wohlleben

With them through hell, Anna Rogers

Top recent reads:

Wilding, Isabella Tree

Eddy, Eddy, Kate de Goldi

Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton

The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker

Circe, Madeline Miller

The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane

France, John Julius Norwich

The Seven Trees of the Somme, Lars Mytting

The Running Hare, John Lewis Stemple

Hero of Empire: the making of Winston Churchill, Candice Millard

Being Mortal, Atul Gawande

Everyone has books they love for all time, that they keep going back to, or that stood out as important at the moment they first read them.

Sometimes it's just a book, sometimes it's an author. Sometimes they're 'comfort' books, sometimes they're seminal.

Everyone's list will be unique, but I like reading a few from other people's lists – it helps you understand who a person is. You probably won't be able to figure out why that book, or when this one mattered – but you'll still get to connect on a whole new level.

Great books on my list include:

The Outsiders by SE Hinton

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

Even Cowgirls get the Blues by Tom Robbins

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

All from my early years, in the order I discovered them. Each has stood the test of time – as have many more...