Ashleigh Carr recommends

I have loved reading since I was a child. I have fond memories of defiantly reading Roald Dahl in a crack of light from the hallway after bedtime, and in the moonlight through my bedroom window. I even dressed up as Roald Dahl’s ‘Danny, Champion of the World’ for one of my school ‘Show and Tells’.

That said, I often struggle to sit down to a good book as an adult – there is always a long list of ‘life admin’ or a congested WhatsApp inbox to attend to; or a more passive way to relax, like listening to music.

However, I have really enjoyed compiling this list. I have particularly enjoyed reflecting on where I was and what I was doing, at the time I read each book.

Patrick Melrose

Mother’s Milk by Edward St Aubyn

This is the first (and won’t be the last) book which I have read in the Patrick Melrose series. The protagonist is a barrister, who has a list of vices and struggles with the mundanities of earning a living and raising a young family. It is a pitiful but humorous car crash.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies

John Boyne

I loved this book and all the characters in it. It begins in 1940s rural Ireland and brings us up to the modern day, exploring a variety of traditional cultural taboos. It made me laugh and cry and become nostalgic for a precious few months spent in Dublin as a law school graduate

Normal People

Sally Rooney

This is a beautiful book by Sally Rooney, the much-celebrated Irish author, full of teenage angst. I missed my bus stop twice whilst reading it. The BBC dramatization is also enchanting. And it brought Paul Mescal into mainstream consciousness.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez I read this during my first visit to Colombia in 2019. I love the humour and irreverence of García Márquez’s books, and the way he examines the most fundamental of themes, like love, death, family and war, through an almost mythical lens. It has the feel of an adult fairy tale.

Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami

This was the first book I read by Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. It propelled me to read several more. It’s not exactly a ‘feel-good’ read. Although it is an evocative and beautiful examination of the human condition; and a nod to The Beatles, another of my loves.

The Devil You Know

Dr Gwen Adshead in collaboration with Eileen Horne I completely devoured this book, which is written by a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who works with violent offenders. Each chapter tells the story of a different person, and explores themes of mental health, forensic psychiatry and the concept of ‘evil’. It really appealed to the armchair psychologist in me.