Listeners are invited into a heartfelt conversation with Susan Fletcher as we discuss her brilliant new novel The Night in Question." 

Susan discusses the inspiration behind her protagonist Florrie, an 87-year-old woman who embarks on a quest to uncover the truth behind a mysterious incident in her care home. We also discuss Susan's creative process, particularly how her time during the lockdown influenced her writing and character development. 

Of course, we also discuss the five books that have shaped Susan’s life, she is so passionate about her choices that she inspired me to pick up one that I had always been intimidated by and I loved it as much as Susan did.

Susan’s book choices are:

Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje 

 Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes 

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett 

Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode of Best Book Forward and be sure to tell your bookish friends all about it. See you next week for more bookish chats with another author.

Welcome back to best book forward, the podcast where I talk to authors about the five books that have shaped their lives.

Think of it as like the bookish version of Desert Island Discs.

Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Susan Fletcher, author of the Night in question, a book that I absolutely adored.

In this episode, we'll delve into the world of Susan's captivating stories, discussing the weight of secrets, inspiring older characters, and how Susan found inspiration during the lockdowns.

Of course, as well as chatting about the night in question, we'll also find out which five books have shaped Susan's life.

Susan, welcome, and thank you so much for joining me on best book forward today.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to chat to you.

I absolutely love the Knighton question.

It is a mystery, and I know not all listeners would have read it yet.

So we're going to keep this completely spoiler free.

And I'm saying that more for me than for you.

So do you want to start off by telling listeners what the knight in question is all about?

Absolutely.

Lovely to speak to you, too.

This is a treat.

So the knight in question is two things.

It is.

First of all, as you say, it's a mystery.

There's a contemporary mystery happening.

My protagonist is Florrie.

She's 87.

She is wheelchair user in a residential home.

And one night, something mysterious and unsettling happens in her care home.

Everybody else around her thinks it's a tragic accident, but Florrie considers it to be otherwise, and she sets about trying to solve the mystery.

So at first glance, that's what this book is.

It's a contemporary mystery, a classic whodunnit, if you like.

But the second thing this book is, and what I feel the heart of this book is I really wanted to write about one woman's life.

I wanted to take this 87 year old who is overlooked by society, who is very much underestimated, who people might look at and think very little of.

But actually, she's extraordinary.

She's had this immense, interesting, unorthodox, complicated, tragic, joyful life.

And I wanted to set that down.

I wanted to look at Flora's life from preconception when her parents first meet, all the way up to where she's 87 now and the secrets that she holds, the love affairs she's had and not had.

I remember reading William Boyd's in a human heart when I was quite young.

It doesn't feature in one of my five books, but it could have done.

And I just loved that here was someone's life set down on pages and all the complexity and sadness of it.

And I wanted to do that with a woman.

So that's what the book is.

It's two things.

And I should say, too, that we find out quite early that in Florrie's life and her teens, something happened to her that's informed her whole life.

Everything she's done, all her decisions have been based, really on this thing that happened, and we don't know what it is until the denouement of the book.

So in a way, it's two mysteries in one.

But that is my slightly long summary of the night in question.

No, it's fabulous, and it's two things done brilliantly well.

Like, the mystery is fabulous, and the story of flory is incredible.

She is such an interesting character.

I loved her.

I mean, as you say, she has had an extraordinary life, which we find out through the dual timeline, going all the way back to the very beginning, which I don't think I've seen done like that before, which I loved.

She is a really interesting character, and I'd love to know, was she inspired by somebody you know, or where did she come from?

And beaming.

I know the readers can't tell, but that's such a lovely thing to hear.

Thank you.

In the beginning, she was inspired by my grandmother, but only in terms of circumstance.

And I really wanted to write about somebody who has a disability, but it doesn't define who she is.

So Florrie sets about solving a crime.

The only thing really, she can't do is go upstairs.

Everything else she can manage.

So, yes, we know she's a wheelchair user, but also, in a way, it's a minor part of her because she's 10,000 other things other than that, and that was my grandmother.

You know, she just got on with it, basically.

But in terms of Florrie's character, what she has gone through, what she's seen and experienced, she really came to me fully formed.

I started the book in lockdown.

I wanted to write about a character who primarily would keep me good company because I was living on my own in this little first floor flat.

And like everybody, I was very anxious about what was happening in the outside world.

So writing and reading is my fallback and my comfort, and I wanted character that I would be with every day, who just made life better for me.

And Florrie was absolutely that.

She wheeled herself into the room in a st of pink florals and her powder puff hair and said, right, I'm with you now.

And now is hard, but look at all the wonderful things there also are out in the world.

So she's optimistic.

She just.

She did feel fully formed.

And it's interesting.

This is book number seven for me, but in many ways, it feels the most personal.

And I think, first of all, there is the element of my grandmother there from the start, but lockdown meant I couldn't go out and research things.

I couldn't go and explore, and I knew I wanted.

And this isn't a spoiler, but I knew one of the things that should be part of Florrie's life is travel.

She's travelled extensively, and I can't say I've travelled as much as she has, but I have backpacked in my younger days, and I kept Iris, so I had no choice but to revert to those, to inform Florrie's life.

So a lot of her traveling experiences and what she's seen and heard and smelt come from my terrible, slightly overblown traveling diaries from when I'm 24.

So I find, actually, a lot of me in those pages more than I have probably, in any other book.

So, yes, she is slightly inspired on granny.

There's a touch of me there.

I know there is, because I had to flesh out her traveling, but really, she's just.

She came fully forward more than any other character I've ever written.

She just appeared in front of me, and I knew who she was, and I knew what she was going to tell me, and I knew what her secret was.

I mean, there's so much you've just said there that I literally just smiling at you like a lunatic, haven't I?

As we talk.

It's lovely.

I'm smiling at you back.

This is great.

I love the idea that she's based on your granny is amazing.

But the idea of her coming to you in lockdown, as you were saying that, I can't remember the exact quote, I won't try and flick through the book to find it.

But something that I loved about Florrie as well is the way that she talks to herself.

And I don't mean like, she sort of sits and have conversations, but, you know, little things that she says.

So at the beginning, when, you know, all her sort of circumstances are changes, she's like, come now, Flory.

You know, you're still alive, you can still do.

And I was like, oh, she's so positive, so compassionate to herself as well as others, isn't she?

It's like really special.

Oh, yeah, I wanted that.

I wanted.

I mean, maybe I wander around talking to myself.

I'm not quite sure I do, but, yeah, maybe we all do.

But I wanted somebody who.

Yes, she's cheerful and positive and outgoing, but she's not.

Somebody at one point compares her, I think, to sort of being as insubstantial as a powder puff.

And it galls her that because she knows what she's gone through, she has had more hardships and losses as you would when you get to 87, you'll have lost people you've loved.

And she has been lonely and she's been afraid and she's been all the hard feelings at some point in her life, and she's managed to get through.

She's dug deep, probably because she said to herself, you can do this.

Come on.

Best foot forward.

And so, yes, she is positive and upbeat, but I like to think it's only because she has had to be.

She has had no other choice.

There's a wonderful quote that I'm probably going to get wrong now.

There's a book called Ahab's Wife by the american writer, and I'll probably pronounce her name wrong as well.

But Senegata Naslund is what I'm meant to go for.

It's wonderful big and it's juicy and it's gorgeous, and it's about immobie dick.

It's mentioned very briefly that Captain Ahab has a child bride back at home waiting for him.

And the whole book is from her point of view.

So it's really interesting.

But I remember there's a quote, and I'm going to hash it up a little bit, but it's something along the lines of, whenever you meet a woman who seems to sail with confidence, sit down and talk to her, because you'll find at some point she's left herself for hanging dead.

And I loved that.

And it's this idea that you can meet someone who just seems formed and elegant and in control of themselves and outgoing, and you think, gosh, I wish I had her confidence.

But the reality is, at some point, she's been on the floor crying.

And that's flory, that she, she seems so happy being who she is.

But pick at the surface and you find that she's just riddled with insecurities and anxieties and worries and loss and she's just had to.

To put herself together and crack on.

She is very, very complex and just so lovable.

So despite her recent.

You said, you know, she's a wheelchair user, which happens late stage of her life.

She is sharp and she's witty and she has all these insecurities and, you know, all the wonderful things we've just talked about.

But how did you balance her vulnerabilities and her strengths to make her so believable and so lovable?

Oh, I'm so glad she's lovable to you.

I miss her.

I really such a joy spending every day with her.

And it was.

I felt so nervous.

I mean, you always feel nervous releasing a book, but I keep having moments thinking, I hope she's all right out there, out in the world.

It's like she's real and I don't get to see her anymore.

It's just, you know, I mean, it's lovely that she's published in other countries.

I was thinking, how is she in America?

Is she all right?

Is she getting old world again?

She's traveling the world again.

So she's having new adventures.

Exactly.

It's seeing wonderful things.

So in answer to your question, how did I handle that?

I think it helped that I always knew what her big secret was.

That was almost the starting point and obviously I will not reveal what the big secret is, but from that I started to think, right, well, how would she respond to this situation?

Having gone through what she's gone through, how would she respond to this person and working that out?

And I am really interested in psychology and understanding how people work and that, I think will come out in our chat today.

So it was sort of mapping that, really, first and foremost, and that would be her vulnerability and then thinking, right, how does she cope with this?

And bringing in the softness and the light and the humour.

And I think, too, because probably, again, lockdown forced me to do this.

You sit with yourself much more, particularly if you're living on your own, doing lockdown, as I was, so there was much more inward looking behaviour.

I was more introspective.

How do I feel about the situation?

What would I have done?

How would I cope with this?

So I feel that's not a very good answer to your wonderful question, but I think really it was.

It began with knowing her secret and working out how would somebody live their life after this?

And taking it from there?

That's amazing.

Do you know, just thinking, as you're saying, but I love the idea of you spend.

We're not spending lockdown with flory because, you know.

Do you know what I mean?

That she is lovely.

I'm just thinking about some of the other episodes I've recorded for this series so far.

And there's been a couple, I think, of books that have been written in lockdown in this series that's so amazing that, you know, these wonderful books that brought so much joy and comfort to people have been sort of come from that time.

So I think it's, you know, it's.

I mean, my take on it, actually, the start of lockdown, I was writing a completely different book, but it was quite heavy and it was about, you know, a man in the final stages of life and gathering his family around him to his deathbed and secrets.

Right.

So it felt heavy and lockdown's announced and you panic and you worry about the people you love.

And I thought, nope, can't do it.

Need to bring comfort, need to bring lightness, need to bring friendship.

And one of the things I really feel strongly about is just because one is getting older, why should we think opportunities stop?

I mean, certainly some do.

I will now never win Wimbledon.

It was never on the cards, but I now know I never will.

And Florian, aged 87, won't climb Everest.

But why shouldn't she still make new friends, still learn things?

Still, crucially, why shouldn't she fall in love, aged 87?

Why shouldn't these things still be happening?

And I loved thinking that in lockdown, because it makes you think about the time beyond this at a point, we will stop being in lockdown and I don't know what the world will look like after that, but there will still be avengers and there will still be love and there will still be joy.

You just have to hold on tight and hope for the best.

But we'll get there.

And that's Flora's take on life as well.

Yeah.

Hope.

Hope.

Such an important thing in our lives, isn't it?

Whatever situation.

Absolutely.

Okay.

One of the themes you explore in the book, as we talked about, is secrets and the burden they can have on those who carry them.

We know Flory has a secret and she refers to it as the Hackney incident.

We're not going to spoil it for anybody.

I love the way you develop these storylines again, using that dual timeline to keep readers guessing.

I haven't read your other books yet.

After finishing the nighting question, I was like, well, I'm going to go back to the beginning and read them all.

So I decided to do that.

But I have seen that secrets is a theme that you enjoy exploring and you've talked about psychology of people.

So I wonder if you could talk about what it is about that that interests you.

I mean, who doesn't love a secret?

Who doesn't love a secret?

It's interesting because quite often I now look back.

I mean, you just said that I'm interested in secrets.

I probably didn't know I was.

You glance back at certain books and you go, oh, I seem to have a theme now that's recurring.

And I didn't know that.

But secrets, I mean, first of all, to be really blunt, it's a great plot device that sounds very cold and callous.

But of course, if you hint early on in a novel, this character who you're going to be spending time with knows something that nobody else knows.

Something has happened to her or hime nobody knows about.

But in time, you will know, they will share this with you.

So that as a plot device, is very useful as a reader, which I am first and foremost.

I love that.

I love that tease.

Okay, I'm going to stick with this character because I want to know what's formed them.

But I also.

I think we all have them, you know, and it doesn't have to be something huge.

We don't have to have gone through what Flora's gone through.

We don't have to have some terrible backstory that we deaden down, but we all hold things inside us that we don't want to share, even if it's just a feeling.

I'm really interested in what we don't talk about, and that's becoming less, which is great.

I think there's things that 20 years ago, we couldn't have come forwards and talked about that we now feel we can.

But there are still things.

I mean, two of the feelings that I find particularly interesting and want to explore.

One is loneliness.

I think that's still one of the big taboos that people don't talk about.

We can talk about many things.

We can perhaps come forward and say, I'm depressed or I'm going through this, but it's hard to say, hello, I'm lonely.

I don't think we quite know how to handle that yet.

And yet it's a feeling that we all have at some point, and it might well be the cliche, if you like, of being lonely in a crowded room, but we all have it.

We all have moments where we just think this is.

I feel disconnected, I feel wretched, I feel on my own, even though I might be surrounded by 100 people.

So I'm really interested in talking about that.

So I think holding that inside and not feeling able to talk about it is interesting.

And another thing that I'm really interested in is this.

Disappointment.

Disappointment is a word that we throw around all the time.

Or I'm a bit disappointed that my cake didn't rise properly, or I'm a bit disappointed it's raining today.

It feels light.

But actually, disappointment, at its most profound, is a huge feeling because it implies that you've invested time or money or emotion.

You mentioned hope.

Disappointment, obviously is when you've hoped for something and it's not worked out.

And I think that can be a huge thing.

It can be.

A.

Disappointment can be so heavy and hard, but again, it's quite hard to come forwards and talk about it or to say, I feel really disappointed about this.

It's an emotion that I think warrants more investigation and given more credence and time, because it can.

It can be a massive feeling, whereas it sounds so often like it's not.

So secrets.

Yes, events can be held, and my characters do hold events inside them that they don't share.

But I'm also very interested in just feelings that we don't talk about as much as we should.

And I think in many ways, the job of a writer is to bring forward and set down on the page feelings and experiences.

The reader doesn't talk about that often, but the reader can look at and go, I have felt that I relate to this character.

This is how I felt when standing on top of a mountain or when sitting at a bus stop in the rain.

I felt this too, and how lovely.

I can connect with this character and this writer as a reader.

I love it when that happens and I try to do that with my books.

I think you do it really well, and I think it is so important for people to see their experiences.

I mean, obviously you'll see them in movies, but I don't think I personally, I don't connect to things like that as well as I do in a book.

If you see, I was thinking about when you were saying about loneliness, I remember when my twins were born, you know, and it's like I'd wanted them for years, and then I was like, oh, I'm really lonely.

Like, I've got them.

But, you know, making friends with other mums was really hard and I knew that I felt it, but I wouldn't say it.

But I see other people talking about it now and see it in novels as well.

And I'm thinking, that's so great.

Because young mums coming behind me will know that that's really normal.

Absolutely.

I read, I'm a real big fan of the school of life.

I don't know if you know of the school of life.

It's an organization.

Alan de Botton, the philosopher, set it up.

And really, it's a resource to help people navigate their lives and live the happiest lives possible.

And it does so by using philosophy.

So some of the real classic philosophers, but they do little books, little podcasts, three minute videos on how to get through a moment of loneliness, for example.

And they have quite a few really lovely articles and essays about the job of art to console us.

And I remember again, it was a lockdown discovery this the question of why are so many paintings that have people in them?

Why do those people often look sad?

And I stopped and I thought, do they?

And of course you think, well, how many paintings, if you went to the National Gallery, would you see someone sitting there smiling?

The Mona Lisa is famous for possibly smiling.

And then you've got to think, is it the laughing cavalier?

I think is another one.

But actually, if you look at most portraits, people aren't grinning and you think, why aren't they grinning?

And the school of life argues that actually we're drawn to an image of somebody who momentarily is feeling what we feel on occasion, but can't express.

So somebody looking a bit mournful and looking out the window, potentially looking lonely.

We're drawn to it because we think it.

This person would understand us.

This person would understand how I'm feeling right now.

It's a really interesting concept.

Yeah.

It's like you say that.

I think books do it better than anything.

If you find a good book, that eureka moment when you think, I have felt this, or I've seen that, or I just think it's a lovely form of connection that is so necessary.

Definitely.

And I think, as you say, that things we didn't talk about before, you know, they are coming through now and people are talking more.

And I think it can only be a good thing, can't it?

Like to share more.

So I want to talk about the sort of planning of your books now.

I am not very efficient.

Like when I'm doing these podcasts, I tend to read all the books twice.

So the first time I read them, and it's just sort of read to enjoy.

Second time I'm going through and sort of, you know, looking for themes and quotes and things.

So not very efficient, but it works for me, and I'm sticking to it.

The second time I picked up the night in question, I became very aware of how much there is in there.

So obviously we've got the secrets, the mystery or the characters, the little clues.

And I just thought, how on earth do you plan something like this and pull it together so beautifully?

Like, all the threads at the end all come together, so it's so clever, just reading.

I was like, how do you do that?

That's really kind.

I have to say.

It was hard.

I mean, the structure of this book was, was a challenge.

And I really.

These two strands, these two storylines, contemporary, Florey, 87, care home and the Florey growing up through the twenties, thirties, etcetera, I wanted them to swim together, to plait them together, so that when perhaps there's an event or a feeling that Florrie has as a younger woman, that feeling then is echoed in the contemporary strand, some kind of fluidity.

So it all makes sense.

There's no jarring for the reader.

I wanted it to feel like it moves very smoothly between these, these two timelines.

And that was hard.

There's a lot of moving around.

But also what's hard is I have written novels that have a degree of mystery in them before I have done that, but this is the first time, really, I've gone for something that feels in the whodunit territory.

Excuse me.

And what's really hard about that is, of course, I know who did it.

I know right from the start who the culprit is.

So when you're laying clues, when you're sort of popping in the odd red herring, it's really hard to know how that's going to come across because I'm one step ahead.

I'm always going to know.

I cannot be surprised by this book.

And I wanted the reader to go down certain routes and find it a dead end.

And I wanted, with Florida's big secret, I wanted the reader to think various things as we went along.

But I just.

How.

I mean, this is my sort of.

It's a rhetorical question, but how on earth does one, as the writer, get to truly know how the reader is responding to that?

I don't know.

I mean, people who do this far more frequently than I probably do know, but because I can't be surprised.

I was always worrying about if I could surprise the reader, and that was probably the biggest challenge from this sense of structuring the book.

But I'm.

I feel with, I mean, the editing part of me is the brain, but the writing is the chest, the heart, the soul instinct.

And often I would finish a chapter and just sit and think.

I've been left with this feeling at the end of this chapter.

What feeling would I want to start the next chapter with?

If I've just had quite a sad scene, if something difficult has just happened, I'd like the next chapter to lift me back up.

Or if I've just had quite a buoyant, fun chapter where I've laughed out loud, I hope, which I did do.

As I wrote this, I'm ready for the next chapter to be reflective and poignant and for something in it to just feel a bit sharp because I'm prepared for it.

So it felt a much more instinctive way, really, more than anything.

What feeling do I want now?

Where do I want to be taken?

Do I want my hand to be held quite tight in the next chapter, or do I want to just exhale and enjoy being with Florrie for the next ten pages?

So it's.

It was more an instinctive way of writing, I think, more than anything else on that one.

That's so interesting.

So I think, having read it, obviously, twice, the first time, I mean, I would be the world's worst detective.

Like, I just.

I think I would be, too.

Don't worry.

Like, I am useless.

So the first time I was like, oh, gosh.

The second time, sort of reading it and sort of trying to keep an eye out to sort of see where you sort of, you know, try to, like, lead me down the wrong path.

And I forgot because I got into the flow again, and I would just be reading.

I'm supposed to be.

And I'm like, I'm supposed to be looking for things, Helen.

Not just enjoying it, but, no, it's really, really interesting.

I love that sort of idea, you know, of it sort of, you know, wanting to surprise you just did it brilliantly.

It's so, so good.

And I would have thought, sorry.

No, no.

I was going to say, as a reader, I love that when you read a book and you have a surprise, and you think, oh, my goodness, I didn't realize that.

I mean, same with movies.

And you go back and read or watch it a second time, and suddenly you see the clues are there, and you're like, oh, that's what that meant.

Or so.

I mean, I love that.

So trying to do that is a fun thing for me.

I just imagined you with all these boards around with all the characters and, like, little pins, like a murder thing.

Yeah.

I feel, yeah.

I mean, it almost looks like something a child's done with bits of wool, and, I mean, we want to step away from dried past does stuck on the wall, but, you know, it's highlighter pens and felt tips and.

And trying to work out people's relationship to each other, who's told a lie, all of that.

It's.

Yeah, it is complicated.

Brilliant.

So, as I said, you're.

I haven't read any of your other books, but I will go back.

The night in question, is that your 7th or 8th?

7th.

It's my 7th adult, but there was a young adult commission as well.

So in terms of books that I've written, it's number eight, but in terms of adult fiction, it's number seven.

So we can go with either.

I'm like, let's go, eight.

Eight's a good number.

What have you learned along the way?

And what advice would you give to anyone who's starting out in their writing journey?

What have I learned along the way?

I mean, there's all the basic things that make sure you eat well and sleep and don't do what I have done in the past, which is stay sitting down for 16 hours to try and make a deadline.

So I think it's easy for me to say, keep a pen and paper with you.

Read widely.

Obviously, you need to do that.

That's essential.

But actually, I think what I would say, and it's going to sound rather controversial, the best advice I can give is probably make sure you put the books down and you put down the pen and you put down your laptop and go outside.

Because really, what we do as writers is we're writing about the world.

We're writing about people, we're writing about experiences.

And yes, the reading of these things help us to put it down on paper, but we need to go out and see and feel and hear and smell and taste in order to have the right ingredients for what we want to write about.

And I've realized, too, I mean, I love landscape, and I'm an outdoor girl, and I'm happiest in walking boots.

And had you asked me ten years ago to come on this podcast, I'd say it's a landscape I want to write about, and it still is.

But I now understand much more.

We're all writing about people.

Everything to do with art.

From my point of view, it's about people loving people, being interested in people, and loving and being interested in ourselves, which is often a harder thing to do.

So meeting people going out into the world.

Going out into the world and talking to people, sitting with them, really paying attention.

You know, if you're sitting at a pub table and it's sticky, great, notice that it's sticky.

Store it away in the back of your head.

Pay attention to the backs of your mother's hands or how the rain looks on the window or finding that you feel sitting here on a chair different to how you thought you might, you know, it's this awareness of the world around us.

I feel.

I feel I'm getting a better writer the more I do that.

I read as much as I ever did.

It is essential.

It shows us how to set the words down.

It gives us.

Sorry, it gives us ideas on how to do that, but really get out into the world.

I think it's the most important thing I can say, if that makes sense.

It does, and I love it.

And I just, I was thinking, as you were saying that on Instagram and I couldn't sort of remember who it was, but an author saying they posted a picture of a beach and they were sat there and they're like, oh, I just had to come out and just sit here.

And then the character started talking to me again.

She said, watching people on the beach.

And I was like, oh, that's so lovely.

And it actually, you know, that.

How can you sit in a room?

I mean, some people probably do, I guess, but I think that's really interesting to do that.

Lucid.

I'm sorry.

Interrupting you?

No, I just, it feels, like controversial thing to say.

You know, if you want to be a writer, put down books and pens, because that's effectively what makes you a writer, is the books and the pens.

But I do.

I feel, I mean, it's probably a trite comparison, but you could read all the cookery books in the world on how to bake the best possible cake.

You know, all the different techniques and how you need to butter the tin and whatever it is.

But actually, you've got to go out and get the best eggs.

You've got to go out into the world and get the best flour.

You've got to get, you know, the best ingredients will actually make the best cake.

It doesn't matter how well you know how to make the cake.

You need to find the stuff yourself to put in it.

And.

Yeah, talking to people and, I mean, one of the, I mean, this job I do, I nearly always have had to have secondary work or tertiary work even.

There's always other jobs on the go.

And I've loved jobs that put me in touch with people, whether it's serving them in a shop or taking their order, because you're constantly being stimulated by people without even knowing it.

You know, you might suddenly.

I found the other day that I was writing about somebody, a man whose hair was a bit too long at the back, so it was brushing his collar.

And you think, I saw that somewhere.

Where did I see that?

And I still don't know, but I know I've seen it in one of my many jobs, and it's now in the book.

So it's just constantly feeding your work by being aware and being interested in life, I think.

I love that.

Absolutely love it.

Right, before we move on to talk about your book choices, I've got a naughty question to ask.

A bit greedy, probably.

So there's a bit of a trend at the moment for, you know, plucky pensioners, solving crimes, the Thursday murder Club, the Marlowe Murder Club, all very, very popular.

We meet some really interesting characters in the night in question.

And given that Babington hall has already been home to some foul play, would you consider exploring this further as a sequel?

Or can the residents at Babington hall all rest easy now?

It's a very good question.

I was so sad to let Flory go, and I thought, gosh, is there anything I can do with her going forwards?

But in a way, because the book is two things, and perhaps the greatest mystery of the book is her life, not what happens to Babington Hall.

I think maybe I leave Florrie where she is.

However, it's lovely that you mentioned the other characters.

I loved writing all these secondary characters, and I wanted them to feel as real and formed as Flory does, even though they might only get a page to themselves.

And there are certain characters in the book that I'm particularly fond of.

Two, from Flora's backstory.

I particularly adored her friend Pinky and a character called Victor.

And I could talk to you about female friendship for a very long time as well, because I think that also was a very underrepresented and wonderful thing.

But in the actual care home, yes, there are a couple of residents who I think, gosh, I sense you have a backstory.

I sense you have a particularly interesting life.

And maybe down the line, I would go and visit them.

So we would still see Florrie, but Florrie would become a secondary character because I'd be now looking at one of the other residents in detail.

So that's a possibility down the line.

I would run that past Transwell get the green light.

But for now, I'm doing something that's with different people, unrelated.

Structurally, it will be a similar book, what I'm working on at the moment.

But I do feel potentially there's life left in badminton hall, so to speak.

And going back to it would be a lot of fun, I have to say.

I loved writing this book.

I just.

Every day was a joy, even though it was structurally really challenging, and there's some sad bits that were hard to write.

I just.

I loved it.

It's the most rewarding thing I've done professionally, without question, and I'm really proud of it.

And it's lovely being able to talk about it, honestly.

You can hear that I'm smiliNg.

You can See I am.

We're both just beaming.

I mean, I watch, perhaps.

I mean, I want to show you this.

This is How MucH I could have talked ABout your books.

I'm just showing Susan that all the tabs that I have put.

So, yes, pinky is tabbed in there.

Victor is tabbed in there, lots of other characters.

I mean, we could have been here for 2 hours just talking about my tabs.

I love your tabs.

Thank you.

The night in question is out now, and it is a brilliant read.

We're heading into cosy reading season, and I think this would be a perfect one to pick up with a nice cup of tea and really sink your teeth into.

So treat yourself.

Before we move on to talk about Susan's book choices, I just want to remind listeners that all of the books we talk about, and we've mentioned a few already, but they'll all be in the show notes, so you'll be able to find them easily.

So, Susan, how did you find choosing your five books?

Hard.

Really?

Everyone must say that.

Really hard, because how do you pick five out of however many thousands that one has read in one's life?

And I think I messaged you going, is it all right to pick non fiction as well?

Because I'm obviously, I'm a fiction reader.

I love fiction, but I read a lot of non fiction.

My first love was poetry.

Still is my first lover's poetry.

So if you'd said to me, I can only do fiction, I may have found that a little bit harder, because some of the books that I feel have really defined my writing life, and probably my personal life, too, have been non fiction.

So once you said I could, that made this easier.

That'd be really mean.

Would it be like, no, you cannot have nonfiction.

I think there's been one other nonfiction so far that's been chosen on this series?

Yes.

Yeah.

I've got one more to record, so.

But I think there's only one so far.

How interesting.

Yeah.

So should we.

Should we crack on and find out about your first choice?

So, my first choice is the poetry collection.

Up to this point, I had.

I knew I loved reading.

I was already tentatively writing.

I discovered this book.

I was still at school, so I think I was about 13, give or take.

I can picture the classroom I was in.

And I remember the classroom the english teacher had written on the back.

It said, poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.

And I remember at one point thinking, I don't get that.

I haven't read poetry in the way that makes me understand that it feels complicated.

And I don't.

I don't get it.

And then I discovered death of a naturalist.

And it was in that classroom.

The actual.

Whilst the collection is death of an actress, there is a poem in it.

Record the same.

And I remember we were given that poem in that classroom to read.

And something happened.

I couldn't believe how beautiful it was.

And I felt placed in this boggy landscape.

And I understood the language, but it felt kind of chewy and rich and dark.

And I just didn't know that writing could do this.

And I bought the collection.

And it has.

It has changed how I.

It was.

It was a starting point.

It made me want to write.

I just felt something had opened up to me.

I could hear the rhythm.

I could hear.

He's not a man who rhymes, obviously, but you do hear echoes.

It is so immersive, which is a theme that I'll use that word again before our time is out.

I know I will.

But it is a collection about the natural world, which by this point, I already knew that was where I was happiest.

You can feel the peat bogs and smell them.

You can hear the cattle on the farm.

It is very much about the farming life for him, but it's also about writing death of an actress.

It's his first collection, I think his most famous poem from.

It is probably digging, which opens the book up.

And it's about the fact he comes from farming stock, but actually he's going to write.

His pen is going to be his implement.

That's how he's going to define his life.

He's going to dig into humanity, if you like, rather than dig into the soil.

And it is just beautiful.

There's a.

There's a poem, BlackBerry picking.

I remember feeling like I was eating the blackberries.

I could taste them.

He's written one in there called turkeys observed.

And I think about it every Christmas.

It's about a butcher's shop window just before Christmas and that the dead turkey's in the window.

I mean, you can make a poem about that.

I remember he talks about these turkeys looking like slack bags of inky putty and something.

I know he talks about the sides of beef retaining the smelly majesty of living that the turkey cowers in death.

I just.

It just.

I just think he's great and I've loved him my whole life.

And I was so upset when I heard of his passing.

And one of my regrets was when I was at university, he briefly visited and I was involved in the university newspaper.

And they said, do you want to go and interview him?

And I said no, because I was too afraid.

I was just too.

I thought, but what if I'm clumsy and awful and ask stupid questions or fall over?

And I felt I couldn't do it.

And now I just wish I'd done it because everything I've read about him, he would have been as gracious and kind as he comes through on the pages being.

And that's.

That's one of my regrets.

But this book is beautiful.

And his final poem, first of all, is a really, what I think is a really beautiful love poem called valediction, which is so tender and just.

It's a beautiful sonnet and then personal.

Helicon finishes the collection and he says at the end that he rhymes to see himself and to set the darkness echoing.

And I feel that's such a beautiful way of summing up why I, and probably a lot of people write it, is to see yourself, to understand yourself better, but to set the darkness echoing.

I love that.

It makes me so excited.

So, yeah, death of a naturalist.

It made me really appreciate the beauty of language.

It introduced me to poetry.

I try to get a rhythm in my prose.

I try to even occasionally get rhymes in that the reader might not be obviously aware of, but will feel as they read it.

And I could never bore of him.

I just think he's fantastic.

So that's number one.

And that's amazing.

So did you say you were 13 when you.

I would have found it.

So.

Yeah.

But I do remember, I can tell you, the chair I was in, in that classroom when I read death of a naturalist.

It was.

Misses Hooper set it down in front of me and it just.

It changed and suddenly.

Yeah, poetry is to prose is dancing is to walking.

I understood it after that.

That's amazing for, you know, a teen to sit in that class and then come away, you know, be inspired and live your dream.

When I was reading, I mean, I said, you know, the book flows beautifully.

There were several sentences that I'd marked and I was like, I can't really read them out because I'm worried about spoilers.

But I'm just looking at the back here at the reviews on the back and, you know, people are saying extraordinary, lyrical Sunday times and it is so.

That's incredible that it's inspired and you've taken it through to your work.

That's such a lovely story.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think if I could have been, I'd have been a poet first, but I actually really can't write it.

I've tried.

I don't feel I'm any good at poetry, but taking some of the rules and some of the music of poetry and trying to get it into prose, that's what I love as a reader.

When I can read book that feels poetic to me, as you will shortly find out with my other choices.

But moving, maybe wonder maybe one day if Florrie can do things at 87.

Who knows what you'll be doing at 87?

So come on, I'll get there in the end.

Let's move on to book two, then.

Yes.

So I'm still in my teens when I discovered this one and I just.

I just remember loving it.

It's Jamaica in Daphne du Maurier.

And I suppose we're moving on a little bit from what I already knew about myself was that I love reading about the natural world, landscape, how the wind feels in your hair, etcetera.

And what I remember, first and foremost, about Jamaica, when is the opening.

And how the heroine, Mary Yellen, is travelling across Bodmin Moor in a small carriage, horse drawn carriage, and the weather's terrible, foul weather.

And I remember there was just one line about the rain hitting the side of the window like a handful of stones.

And I just think, I know what that's like.

I've heard that against my bedroom window in a Birmingham suburb.

I know that sudden clatter when the wind changes and you just get it full on.

And so I sort of snuggled down and knew I was reading something pretty special.

And it's so atmospheric, it's so romantic.

It is.

There's a level of threat all the way through that just simmers, which was such a clever thing to achieve.

And I just.

I think it was the first real taste of being transported by fiction, feeling I wasn't in my bedroom, but I was out on Bodmin Moor with her, out on the north cornish coast with.

With Mary.

And I love that.

I love feeling like a book has picked me up and put me somewhere else.

That's the first time I really remember it.

And I just.

I remember feeling frustrated.

I remember feeling this appetite for this book.

There's one scene where Jem Merlin, the horse thief, who's the love interest, he comes to the pub.

I mean, this isn't any spoilers, don't worry.

But he comes to Jamaica Inn, the tavern where Mary lives, and she's been locked into a bedroom, which is above the porch.

And jem climbs up onto the porch roof and he breaks the window and he charges into the bedroom.

And I remember thinking, what's going to happen?

You know, 17 year old me all excited.

And he says something like, oh, where's your uncle?

And she goes anyway.

And then he leaves.

And I remember feeling really frustrated, going, does she not even get a kiss?

What's happening here?

But it is.

It's really, really romantic.

And I remember, too, I would underline the lines that I liked that felt passionate and exciting.

So I just felt very awake with this book.

And I loved the language.

I loved the tension.

It just stands out for me as a real turning point again.

I think that really is what gave me the confidence to try and write.

I say try to write proper.

Try to write.

I mean, I was never at this point thinking I'd write professionally, but really try and dedicate myself to doing it in a way that was more than a hobby, or if it was a hobby, it was my primary one thought, no, be brave.

Set down.

Set down language like they're doing.

You know, have.

Don't steal the stones against the window for the rain, but listen to nature do that.

Try and create that feeling that du Maurier has given you for someone else.

So it really kind of spurred me on.

I think that book.

That's amazing.

So incredible.

You think how many people are reading books and enjoying them, but not sort of, you know, feeding their creativity like you have.

I think that's incredible.

Thank you.

I still.

I mean, I haven't read it.

I really struggled.

I mean, we've talked about this before, how much I struggle with the classics.

But earlier in the season, I chatted to Nicki Mae and she has told me to try them on audiobook.

And I was like, why have I never thought to do that?

So I might try.

Jamaica Inn is quite slender, so it doesn't.

It's not a big one, and it's fast paced.

And yeah, I really enjoy, but I think audiobook is a great way of doing it.

And you also can hear, of course, then any lyricism.

It comes out much more if it's read out loud.

Yeah, I'm going to try that then.

So I think that might be the one I start with.

I'd love to hear what you think.

I will let you know.

Okay.

We're going to move on to book number three then, Susan.

Oh, okay.

So this is me banging on about how lyrical it is again.

So it's the english patient, Michael and Archie.

Where do I start with this?

Just the gorgeousness of the language, the unbelievable structure.

I don't know how he's done this.

I mean, we talked about the knight in question having two timelines and trying to make them dovetail together.

I don't really know how he's done this because he does have strands, and there seems to be no real obvious way of how he's placing them down on the page one after the other, but it just works.

And again, it's really transportive.

I feel I'm in the desert when I read this book, and it is so precise.

There is.

I mean, ondarchy is a poet, and I think that comes across because of how I say spare.

He knows what he's doing with every word, and you can tell, and it's.

I can see this so clearly that really early on in the book, there is a page and a half that I feel is maybe the best writing I've ever read.

And it's just a scene.

It's a description.

We have a man in the desert who's been horribly burned in a plane crash.

He's not recognizable.

And this little paragraph or two is from his point of view.

And he's in the desert in huge pain, and some nomads have discovered him and want to help him.

And out of the darkness comes this man who's wearing a yoke over his shoulders, from which there are hundreds of little, small glass bottles hanging on strings.

And in each of these glass bottles, there is some kind of potion that he uses to heal people in the desert.

And it's just this description of this man setting the yoke down between two rocks.

And he unplugs a few of the corks from some of the bottles, and he mixes them in his hands.

Or also, I remember there's a point when he sits cross legged and he cuts his feet together to form a bowl, and he just pours some of these liquids into.

And he just makes this paste and starts to dab it onto the wounds of the patient and how it's all done.

It's just mesmeric.

It's beautifully done.

So I love.

I mean, I love the book for many reasons, but that scene alone is one of them.

And I think, too, what I really appreciate about that book, anytime I read it, is there is.

It's quite quiet.

It's not action packed.

Yes.

It's about a love affair.

Yes.

We're trying to find out more about this burned man, the english patient, but it's a look at four main characters who are damaged from war, who were trying to survive, who are trying to recover.

There's a lot of sadness in this book, but it's done so beautifully that you can bear it.

And I really like that this book has brought into the fore some of the feelings we mentioned at the start of our conversation.

There is loneliness in this.

There is disappointment, there is loss.

And it's just set down in a very open, honest way that you almost feel it's a privilege to read about what these characters are going through.

So I really love it.

And I love this book so much.

I mean, I've read it more than probably any other that I got to the point where I thought, right, I want to go into the great sand sea.

I want to go to the Sahara just because of this book.

I want to see it.

I want to try and get down to the Cave of swimmers, which I didn't quite manage.

It's right down on the egyptian sudanese border that I did get out into Egypt just based on this.

And I remember being able to sit out one evening and on the sand, and I read some of the chapters of this book, which was.

That felt really special.

And I'm sure a lot of the listeners know what it's like to read a book in the place that it's written or a book where it's set.

There's some kind of magic then that happens.

So the english patient is really special for me, that one.

I don't know how he did it.

And I met him, unlike the Seamus Heaney thing, when I bottled it, Michael.

And it was when Warlight came out a few years ago, and he came and did an event in London, and I came down and I joined the queue and I was really nervous.

What do you say?

To this man who you just think is wonderful.

And I got to the front of the queue and I thought, I may as well just be honest and say, I've been trying to work out what to say to you because of how much your work means to me.

I don't want to come across as just sound and gushing.

I don't know what to say.

I've been unsure.

And he said, well, just say, what do you want to say?

And I said, I just want to say thank you.

And it was lovely and that was enough.

And he was very gentleman and he signed my book.

I went, had a big glass of wine and felt emotional, but.

So I'm really glad I met him.

And I would always go up to a writer if I'm brave enough and try not to gush too much.

But he was very patient with this moon eyed girl.

So, yeah, that's definitely on the list.

I knew that question.

That would be one of my five.

Oh, that is.

I love listening to you talk about these books.

I mean, you're making me want to just write off today and just gather all these books and just sit in my chair and just devour them.

Oh, I hope you can do that.

That sounds like a lovely day.

I can't.

I can't.

I haven't read it.

It's my husband's favorite movie, though.

So when I said it was list.

Yeah.

He was like, it's a good book.

Yeah, it is.

I was really anxious when I knew it was going to be a film because I thought, what are they going to do with it?

But actually, I think it's really faithfully done, is faithful to the book.

There's a lot of the language.

Is there?

And I think Anthony Minghella, who died way too soon, I think he was excellent at adapting novels for the screen.

Same with Cold Mountain.

Talented Mister Ripley.

A lot of the essence of the book.

Cold Mountain is another absolute great read.

It's there on the screen, too.

I think he was fantastic at what he did, and it's a shame he didn't get to do more of it because I'm a very talented man with.

Such a skill, isn't it?

I think when you're taking something that you know, means so much of to people, like somebody's favourite book, it's so hard, isn't it?

Because, I mean, there's some that I don't want to watch because I'm like, I don't want to risk you ruining my book.

I agree.

Okay, well, should we move on to your fourth book choices, then.

So this one is non fiction.

Women who run with the wolves.

Clarissa Pincola estes so, bit of backstory, I think, to when I read this, because it matters a little bit.

So I would have been 27 and I'd gone through a breakup.

The relationship had lasted most of my twenties up to that point.

And I moved and I decided to go and live in Scotland.

And I just had always wanted to.

I wanted to live in the Highlands.

And originally I just went up to visit and I wanted to go to Glencoe specifically.

I just had this real feeling that I wanted to go to Glencoe.

Anytime anybody mentioned it to me, I'd have this.

That's where I want to go feeling.

And as the relationship had been coming towards its end, I remember seeing an advert on the tv from the scottish tourist board advertising it.

And Glencoe is quite recognizable.

It's got some very clear mountains as you approach it.

And I recognized it and I just thought, that's where I need to be.

It's very strange.

So very dark history.

But in this museum, there was a little plaque on the wall talking about in folklore.

There was a woman who lived in Glencoe called Korag, who was reputed to be a witch.

She predicted the massacre and she managed to save a lot of people by warning them.

And I found that really interesting.

And I thought, I wonder if I should write about her.

And then I turned a corner and I saw there was a house that was for rent.

And I thought, I'm going to rent that house.

This.

It was very strange how it all happened very instinctively, very quickly.

So I started to rent this house and I felt that I needed, at this point, a lot of recovery, because I'd gone through a lot.

It'd been a very long, protracted and hard time.

And I picked this book up.

Women who run with specifically.

Actually, I'd had it for years and never read it.

I think books can do that.

You can have them on a bookshelf and it's just not their time.

And suddenly it is their time.

This book, non fiction, it is basically.

I mean, it has a subheading myths and stories of the wild woman archetype, which sounds quite extreme, but all this really does is it's a big book and it talks about the power of storytelling and how it can instruct us and give us advice fairy tales, specifically, that often get looked at as froth and nonsense to entertain children.

They often have a lot of weight and truth in them.

But really, it's encouraging women to listen to their gut instinct more.

That's really what the book's about.

And it's so easy to get sidelined, to be who we think society expects us to be.

To fit into dutiful roles, to give ourselves over to looking after other people, to deaden or at least quieten the wild woman, as it would say, that instinctive, hungry version of ourselves that's connected to the world and looks after ourselves first and foremost.

And this book just opens up that.

The curious side of us, the gutsy side of us, the side of us that has good boundaries.

And so, no, this is my time.

You'll be all right without me.

I'm going to go and do my thing for a bit.

We forget how to do this and the importance of just nourishing ourselves constantly.

It is this wonderful book that encourages you to refine your energy and inspiration and your confidence in yourself.

I had no confidence in myself.

I thought I'd got everything wrong in my twenties.

And the fact I found this little cottage in Glencoe and found the new subject matter for my next book and found this book all at the same time.

It felt so serendipitous.

It felt like there was a real shift happening.

And I just say I blossomed there.

Sounds rather arrogant, but I could feel myself strengthening and opening up.

I wrote much of that third book outside.

I would put on my anorak and make a thermos flask of.

And I'd go and sit against a rock for 6 hours above Glencoe.

And I would just write with pencil and paper, sort of old fashioned style.

And I just felt so replenished.

And it's a book, effectively, that gives you confidence in yourself.

Again, listen to your instinct.

Your instinct is right.

And be creative.

That's the other big message.

Dance, sing, paint, write, do whatever it is that you need to do.

It's just.

It's a big celebratory Klaxon for living instinctively, for being creative, for being joyful, really.

And it was exactly what I needed at that point.

It helped me to write that third book, which, again, I feel really proud of that.

That book.

I have lovely feedback from that book.

And the message in that book is similar.

You know, we have it in ourselves to understand what's right for us.

We must try not to be sidelined, as it so often is.

Easy to be sidelined, isn't it?

So yes, it's very galvanizing.

And if anyone listening to this is having a slump or feeling disconnected or feel that they aren't serving themselves very well, it's worth picking this book up.

It will help you to get back on the straight and narrow.

Or not the straight and narrow, I should say.

Get you back on the wild way.

Exactly.

Unpin your hair and go out there, you know.

So that was so exciting to listen to because I think so many women will completely relate to that.

But whatever stage they're in their life, you know, we all have times where we sort of doubt.

I mean, I recently I've sort of been saying to my daughter, she's eleven, she'll sort of talk about things.

I'm like, that's your gut.

That's your gut feeling.

And people will tell you're silly for saying it, but you have to listen to that.

Which is, I think, you know, as I was growing up, people like, oh, don't be silly, you know, that's just whatever, but I really want to sort of inspire that.

And her.

What was the third book you wrote then?

What was the name of that one?

Because that's one I want to go and read then.

It's known as Witchlight, but in hardback it was called Korag.

It confuses people hugely that it's had two names.

It confuses me too, Korag, because that was the name of this wonderful.

I mean, I hope she did exist.

You know, they say that she's, there's a.

Her grave still exists in Glencoe but it's better known as witchlight.

And that really as well for me, I just threw myself into living there in the natural world and just really observed, I think, everything that I loved about Heaney and all the other nature poets that he led me to, sort of Ted Hughes and Robert Frost and yeah, I just plunged myself into what they would have seen.

I hope I saw too.

You know, I really, I had dirt under my fingernails literally and figuratively as I wrote that book.

So yeah, that's, it's called witchlight.

Okay, I will be reading that.

I love witchy stories as well.

So.

Okay, we've got your final book choice.

This is one that's actually on my TBR.

I haven't read it, but I do that waiting.

I mean, it's not particularly recent, but it's recent to me.

I only read it at the start of this year and it's an author that I'd always wanted to read and heard lots about and just never got round to it and now I'm delighted because I have all her backstory to read, because she's so good.

The book is state of wonder by Anne Patchett.

Again, a bit like women who run with the rules.

I'd had this book on my bookshelf for a really long time.

Taken it down a couple of times and just thought, no, I'm not in the mood for this.

But then at the start of February, in really cold, blizzarding, atmospheric weather, I went up to Northumberland for a week and I was in a reading slump.

I had not been able to read for months.

Something had just happened.

I felt blocked and tired and nothing was working.

I didn't have the concentration for it.

And this book just got me back reading.

She is such a good writer.

I've now read Bel Canto.

I've read commonwealth.

I'm working on Tom Lake at the moment.

I do actually really love.

It seems I've got a particular affinity for american female writers.

I've always loved Atwood.

Barbara King, solver to kill a mockingbird was a.

Was an early.

I mean, that could well have been on this list because that was also a very sort of seminal read for me.

But state of wonder, it's set in the Amazon and it's about a scientist who travels down into the Amazon to basically track down her professor, who seems to have gone missing.

Effectively.

What this is, is heart of darkness for women.

It's probably a very.

I mean, probably Anne Patrick, be really cross if she heard me simplifying it like that.

It's so much more than that.

But you can feel that this is.

There is a huge element of heart of darkness here.

So we have Marina, the protagonist of getting this little boat down into the deepest Amazon, looking for her former professor and also looking for a colleague of hers who last year went to try and find this professor and never came back, who's vanished.

So there's this very mysterious element to the book.

And the reason this professor has gone down into the Amazon is because there is a tribe, the Lakashi tribe, who the women are able to bear children into their seventies.

There is something about this tribe, what they're consuming or doing, that gives the women fertility way beyond what happens in the western world.

And, of course, drug companies are going, well, this is interesting.

Let's find out what their secret is and then we can make mega bucks.

So it's also a book that looks at fertility and women having children.

I'm now 45.

I don't have children.

This is a subject that's really interesting for me.

It's quite a tender subject for me, but I'm drawn now and curious and trying to find stories where the protagonists are women without children.

How are we being portrayed?

Because there's one in five of us.

Women in the UK don't have children.

There's a lot of us that you don't see us very often.

So I was really pleased by chance to find that that was the subject matter of this book.

That's not why I picked it up, so that the theme for me has set me thinking.

But also, again, it's one of these books that does all the things that I love a book to do.

It's transportive.

It sets me in the Amazon.

Excuse me.

I feel like I'm there.

And I remember in my little holiday cottage in Northumberland with the snow coming down outside.

I was awake at three in the morning because there was.

I'm not going to give too much away, but there is a scene in this book, goes on for twelve pages.

It's not a small scene.

And there is a character that gets into a sticky situation with an animal and you just.

This.

You really think this character is going to die?

And it's the most.

My heartbeat was.

I mean, it was probably, you know, 200 beats a minute I was going through these pages just going, don't let him die, don't let him die.

He needs to be safe.

I don't want him to die because I loved this character so much.

It's a child, this character, and the manner at which he potentially could meet his end is just horrible.

And I just wanted to.

I mean, should I say more?

Is this just too.

No, because.

No, I would.

No, I'm gonna have to go read it now.

Okay.

I don't want to say whether he makes it or not.

Or do I?

I don't know.

No, no, don't.

But it is absolutely.

I mean, I couldn't put the book down.

I couldn't believe what I was reading.

It's so tense.

And all the other characters are trying their best to save this boy and you're wanting them to, you know, do this.

Do this.

Have you tried this?

You know, I could feel myself.

I probably even shouted it out loud at three in the morning in Northumberland, you know, sending this message to the fictional Amazon and these people that don't exist on how to try and save this little boy.

So again, it was one of these books, like some of the others that I've mentioned and many more besides that just instill in you this wonder of the written word and makes you realize how powerful it can be.

That it can consume you and change you and send you to another country.

And I just remember my hands shaking.

And when I got to the end of that scene and I knew the outcome, you know, flopping back in the bed and going, I'm so tired.

And having gone through that in a really exhilarating way.

And like I say, I now have Anne Patchett on sort of constant read because she's just so accomplished.

And one of the reviews for State of wonder says, and I'm mashing up the quote.

I can't remember it exactly, but it's something about.

Here is somebody who can write really high end literary fiction but make it so accessible and make it a page turner.

And I completely agree.

And that's what a challenge and what an accomplishment to be a writer who can do those things.

So, yeah, I think that that book deserves.

And that writer deserves to be on the list.

I was the same with Anne Patchett.

I had lots of.

I mean, I would buy her books and I'd have several on my shelf and then not pick them up.

I think the dutch house was my first one that I read of hers.

It's really good.

Really, really good.

But for my.

I can't remember when it was my book club.

We chose twina.

So they always have two picks.

It's Bel Canto or State of wonder.

After, you know, Florida announced that they were two of the potential books to be banned from there, she spoke out about it.

So I was like, right, let's read one of her banned books and see why.

I didn't know state of Wonder was Washington suggested to be banned.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

Bel Canto and state of.

So Bel Canto won the vote.

But I was like, I bought state of Wanda because I was, like, really interested to see.

Not that I think any book should be banned, but I was like, what is in there that people are afraid of?

So I just pick it up.

And now I need to find out what happens to this poor lad in the Amazon.

I know it is.

It's.

I mean, it's about two thirds of the way.

And it's an absolute cracker scene.

I feel I should revisit it, but I need to just make sure I'm.

Even though I now, you know, know the outcome.

I feel it's one I need to just be prepared for because it's.

I've never read anything like that scene.

I don't think, you know, it's not beautiful.

Not like the english patient with this.

This yolk set down on the rocks, which has such sort of, you know, it's limpid and beautiful and soft.

This is.

Comes at you as the creature does.

So it's.

Yeah.

Anyway, I will leave it there.

Okay, so I'm going to take us on to the final question, which I know is a tough one.

If you could only read one of these books again, Susan, which one would you choose?

I mean, temptation is to say the english patient, but I also know that I've read it so many times.

Do I take it and read it for the umpteenth, or do I take one of the other ones?

I think I probably do have to take the english patient.

It's between that, actually, and women who run with the wolves, because that picks you up when you're in a bad place, if that makes sense.

That's so nourishing.

Can I.

I would probably go english patient.

I would have to.

It helps that I've met my conduct.

I can see the pain I'm causing.

I know, I know.

The fire.

I don't want to do that to you.

Let's say the english painting.

It's been a light.

You know, I've loved it ever since I've read it, and I think I've got about seven copies of it, all a bit dog eared and marked and covered in tabs, like, kindly, like.

The state that night in question is for you.

So I will take the english patient, please.

Oh, brilliant.

Susan, it has been absolutely wonderful chatting to you.

I've loved every minute of this.

I could carry on chatting to you all day.

It's been so lovely.

Absolutely.

I think we just, you know, have a coffee break and get some biscuits and sit down.

I've loved it, too.

Thank you so much for asking me, and it's just been such a stimulating and fun chat.

So many thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The night in question is out now, and I hope that today we've managed to convince you to pick it up.

It is a great read and just perfect to curl up with on an autumn evening.

As always, all of the books that we've talked about today are listed in the show notes with links to buy.

I really hope that you've enjoyed this episode as much as I have.

I'll be back next week chatting to another author about the books that have shaped their life, and I really hope that you'll join me for that episode, too.

In the meantime, I'd be so grateful if you could take the time to rate, review, subscribe, and most importantly, tell your friends about it.

Thanks for listening and see you next week.