Scottish writer Lisa Ballantyne on how she always tries to finish a book, the author who has inspired her and what’s she is reading now.
The first book I remember reading:
Before I even went to school, I remember ‘pretending’ to read Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne. Reading was definitely something I aspired to even before I was able. The now ‘lost in time’ Blackberry Farm series by Jane Pilgrim were my bedtime stories, but when I was in primary school and began to read for myself, I remember being enchanted by Roald Dahl’s books at our local library, particularly George’s Marvellous Medicine and The Twits.
A book I recommend to everyone:
There are so many – and recommendations often depend on the person. I recently recommended Motherwell by Deborah Orr, and Winter in Madrid by C.J Sansom – sadly both of these writers are now passed. I am an enormous fan of Mary Lawson and am always recommending her work (she only has four novels so far) as I am astounded that more people don’t know about her, despite being Booker Longlisted. Each Mary Lawson novel is to be savoured – her work is profoundly moving yet effortless at the same time.
The best book I have read in this year:
Very different and random but it is a tie between Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward and Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson. I have read both Sophie Ward’s novels and a great deal of Kate Atkinson’s oeuvre. I admire both of these writers for their enormous versatility.
The book I am most looking forward to:
I am anticipating Margaret Atwood’s A Memoir of Sorts, which publishes later this year. As a younger writer I found great solace in Atwood’s non-fiction memoir on writing, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing and look forward to learning new insights she has to share.
A book I didn’t finish:
I am someone who always tries to finish a book. It might take me longer to get through, but I don’t tend to give up after fifty pages like many. Also, when I read for pleasure, the books I choose don’t tend to be plot-driven page turners, so I usually have patience to persist.
Sometimes the subject matter means I will abandon a book for a while. For example, I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Strout, but her book Lucy By the Sea, which I bought as soon as it was released, was disappointingly about the pandemic – a subject I didn’t want to dwell on after living through it.
An author that has inspired me:
All writers are shaped by their reading and so many of the authors I love have inspired me. Joyce Carol Oates has always been a favourite writer of mine since I was very young. She is so incredibly prolific. I remember reading her novels on my mosquito-ridden Beijing balcony during the period when I lived in China. At that time I had already started to write my own long fiction and I had no way of knowing that in just ten years’ time this inspirational American writer who enthralled me, would read my own debut novel and give it an endorsement. To this day, the fact that Joyce Carol Oates read and enjoyed my novel is one of my proudest moments.
The book I am reading now:
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler and The Bodies by Sam Lloyd. I am sent a lot of books to read and review and they are mostly crime thrillers. When I read for my own joy I prefer quieter books with wonderful prose.
Lisa Ballantyne is the internationally bestselling author of five novels. Her debut, The Guilty One was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award, Longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, and was also a Richard and Judy Book Club bestseller. She has been a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow in France, supported by the Scottish Book Trust and Creative Scotland. Her most recent novel is The Innocent One, published in 2023. She lives in Glasgow.
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