The book that changed my world

Every year it brings together huge literary stars, rising talent, and household names in a series of talks, readings and conversations.

On the eve of the 2022 edition of the festival we cornered seven of its participants – among them writers, poets and a well-known comedian – to ask ‘what book changed your world?’

Strangers

by Rebecca Tamás

That change must come is a given – isn’t it? – but often the form the change must take feels impossible to discern. So much of our world seems broken that to focus on any one part can seem its own form of dereliction, while to look at the whole is to be paralysed. Rebecca Tamás’ book Strangers was one of the first which articulated for me the ways in which injustice, inequality, and the devastation of the natural world intersect and interlink, rooted deep in a habit of thought which reduces the world and most of its population to the status of resource. Perhaps paradoxically, I found it very comforting – the comfort which comes from (at last) naming a problem, and the comfort which comes from sharing it.

The Aesthetics of Resistance

by Peter Weiss

A few days after the riots at the US Capitol in 2021, I began reading volume one of Peter Weiss’s trilogy The Aesthetics of Resistance. In what’s been described as a historical essay-novel, the book plots a period of antifascist resistance in Germany from 1930 to World War II. Today, at a moment in our history where obligations toward art and literature may appear frivolous, I can think of no other work that offers such a forceful argument for the production of art as political action. The English translation is by the renowned Joachim Neugroschel, whose work here is masterful.

Mornings in Jenin

by Susan Abulhawa

When someone asks for recommendations on novels about Palestine written by Palestinians, Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa is always my go-to. Spanning generations, it tells one family’s story before, during and since the creation of the state of Israel. This book left me an emotional wreck, perhaps because it reminded me of my late father’s stories of what he himself went through in 1948. But this may be what Abulhawa wanted; to remind us to never forget our own families’ stories and memories. Mornings in Jenin ultimately reminds us of the powerful role storytelling has in Palestinian culture, and in the liberation movement.

Minor Feelings

by Cathy Park Hong

I read Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong in the depths of lockdown when I couldn’t feel anything and everyday was the same day. Minor Feelings is seismic in its effect on me, it set the trajectory of my mind and has made me really interrogate what stories I want to tell and for who, who benefits from the exhibition of pain, trauma. We are currently at a dearth of storytelling, we need new stories and we need them now if war, poverty and the climate crisis are to be fully addressed and Black and Brown people are often at the sharp end of these issues. Park Hong takes us away from victimisation and to empowerment, the book made me feel sick in the best way; she has made me question everything I thought I knew.

All About Love

by bell hooks

I have tried to enjoy the escapism of fiction, but I continuously find myself being drawn to non-fiction books that challenge, provoke, inspire and encourage us to be more human. For me, bell hooks’ All About Love is a timeless and ground-breaking classic. Written, like most of hooks’ works, way before its time. Resurgent after her untimely death in 2021, it encourages us to re-examine our relationship with love beyond the romantic kind and to tackle a lovelessness that has corroded our society. It continues to keep me on my toes and inspires both my professional work and my personal growth.

Another Mother Tongue (Gay Words, Gay Worlds)

by Judy Grahn

I stumbled across this extraordinary book, an etymology of queer cultures, in the old Silver Moon bookshop while I was embarking on my hungry life as a writer in the early 1990s. I probably shoplifted it; as a working-class writer I’ve always stolen knowledge. The book is an encyclopaedia of meaning, of where I came from, of lesbian heritage, butch-femme dynamics, the language of the other, of the origins of the words used to abuse us: faggot, bulldyke, fairy, et al. The book gave me the courage to become myself, and to feel I had company along the cold road. It is a reference book to a life.

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read

by Philippa Perry

Looking through my bookcase I can see books I loved and books that I keep coming back to but very few that have actually impacted the way I lived my life, and then Phillipa Perry came along. The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read was given to me a few days after I had spent 90 minutes in a stand-off with my two year old daughter when she wouldn’t put on her coat; life was heading in the wrong direction. Writing with charm and warmth, Perry makes you realise that relating to your child as a human being may actually be a better idea than trying to win a battle about them not eating a slice of toast. She has made me a better father, us a happier family and, crucially, my daughter is now much more willing to put on her coat.