Sunday Shelfie with Laura Barnett

When life can at times feel overwhelming we have books, for an escape, for wisdom, to make us laugh, or to shape our life experiences into words when we cannot find them. Books fill us with new ideas and help us understand people. Books remind us we are never alone. In essence, we love ‘em!

How many of us visit someone’s house for the first time and head straight for their bookshelves to get to know them better?

That’s the feeling that I’m always aiming for here on Sunday Shelfies, to get to know authors a little better by having a poke around their bookshelves, plus getting a whole load of book recommendations. You can find the entire archive of Sunday Shelfies here.

And this week the author we’re getting to know is

Laura Barnett

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Laura is the author of four novels Greatest Hits, Gifts and This Beating Heart and the number one bestseller, The Versions of Us. As an arts journalist and theatre critic, she has written regularly for the Guardian, Observer, the Daily Telegraph and Time Out London.

This week sees the publication of her latest novel, Births, Deaths and Marriages, described as Four Weddings and a Funeral for a new generation.

But what we want a look at are her bookshelves, right? And here they are:

How would you describe your collection of books? Any favourite genres?

Beloved, broad and ever-growing. Fiction dominates, but I also have a growing collection of non-fiction books on parenting – my husband Andy and I had our son Caleb in 2020, and I’ve since read just about everything I can get my hands on about motherhood and child-rearing. There’s a decent music section too, thanks in part to Andy, who’s a music producer. When we first shared a flat back in 2010, we combined our book collections; for me, this was about as significant and meaningful a step as the decision to move in together in the first place.

How many books do you estimate you have and how are they organised, if at all?

Oh goodness, hundreds! We have bookshelves in just about every room in our house – for me, a room with no books in it, even a bathroom, just doesn’t feel finished or homely.

The photograph I’ve provided is of a small section of our main shelves in a little area off the living-room that we call, with what I hope is humorous pretension, the ‘library’. Andy did a clever and time-consuming hack with Ikea bookshelves so that we have what look like fitted shelves along one wall. These are organised by genre and subject – plays; poetry; music; history; biography and memoir; health and wellbeing; fiction – but the books in the other rooms are more jumbled.

In our previous house in south London, we kept the majority of our books in one room, and I arranged them in alphabetical order (by surname, naturally) as well as by genre. But this was before we had Caleb, when I had a good deal more time and energy!

In percentage terms, how many of the total books on your shelves have you read?

If I eliminated Andy’s books, I’d say 99% - I keep my newly acquired books on my TBR pile, and only move them into my permanent collection once I’ve read them. But with Andy’s books included – some of which I’ve read, of course, but not all – and the selection of books I inherited from my late father Ian, who died last year, I’d say it’s more like 80%.

Which three books are top of your TBR (To Be Read) pile at the moment?

1. My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud

2. Relearning to Read by Ann Morgan

3. Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant

Which book on your bookshelf is the most well-thumbed/do you return to the most, and why?

A collection of stories called Married Love by Tessa Hadley. This was the first book by Hadley that I ever read – my copy is a proof that I was sent, as I recall, when I worked on the books desk at the Daily Telegraph. After just a page or two, I absolutely fell in love with her style – her writing, line by line, is just beautifully crafted, like a well-turned table or something – and also with her emotional acuity, with the insight and compassion she brings to her characters. Now, whenever my writing or personal life feels difficult, I sink back into this, or another of Hadley’s novels or short-story collections, as if into a warm bath.

Which book on your bookshelf do you most often buy as a gift for others, and why?

The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton. It’s full of wise, funny, pithy essays about how to love, live, work and parent better – or at least to learn to accept our inevitable failures and mistakes.

If you have a collection of writing craft books, which is your favourite and why?

I certainly do, and my favourite, without a doubt, is Bird by Bird by the American writer Anne Lamott. It’s just the most honest, tender book about writing and creativity: she tackles pretty much every aspect of the writer’s craft, life and psyche, and does so with such wry humour and lightness of touch. I teach and mentor writers extensively, and always recommend this to them. Most of them tend to come back to me saying they loved it, too.

If you write within a particular genre, can you tell us your three favourite books within that genre (classic or contemporary) and why?

Hmm, I suppose we could call my genre ‘realist book-club fiction’. My top three favourites in the same vein are:

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (not quite so realist, but certainly book-club!)

2. The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer (such a fantastic multi-perspective group novel about friendship and motherhood by an American writer who is huge in the US and deserves to be bigger over here)

3. Expectation by Anna Hope (just so brilliant on female friendship and the gap between the way we think our lives might go and how they actually turn out)

Which book on your bookshelf is your guilty pleasure?

I bought The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight on a train journey from Manchester to London a few years ago and had finished it by the time the train pulled into Euston. I don’t buy a lot of self-help books – the advice they give can so often feel trite and obvious - but this one had such an irresistible title. Whenever I feel like I need a bit more power and assertiveness in my life, I’ll draw this down from the shelf and read a joyous, sweary page or two.

Which book on your bookshelf do you feel most guilty for not having read yet, and why?

Middlemarch by George Eliot. I’ve never read anything by Eliot and I’m aware that this is a major gaping omission. But – whisper it – I do find this kind of sprawling, earnest Victorian literature a slog to get through. Everybody tells me that this really is worth the effort, though, so one day I’ll get round to it.

Which book would we be most surprised to find on your bookshelf?

Probably the Italian-language edition of Italo Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggatore (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller). I don’t read much in Italian any more, but I studied the language at university alongside Spanish, and lived in Rome for almost two years - so at one time, I was pretty fluent.

Which book on your shelf would you take to a desert island, and why?

The Tessa Hadley short stories – Married Love, mentioned above, or one of her others. Every time I read them I find something new to admire.

Which book is on your wishlist currently to join all the others on your bookshelf?

Ripeness by Sarah Moss. I’ve read pretty much everything Moss has written – she’s an absolute master of her craft, and her subject matter is constantly surprising and intriguing. I just bought her memoir, My Good Bright Wolf, in paperback, so this new hardback novel will be the next of her works to add to my collection.

Thank you so much to Laura for taking part, and now, over to you, how many of the books on Laura’s shelves have you read and what did you think of them? I’d love to know.

I went to see Sarah Moss speak recently so I have the two she mentioned waiting on my ever-increasing TBR pile. Has anyone read them yet? Let me know in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe for more Sunday Shelfies straight into your inbox. Plus upgrade to join my monthly creative writing group for just a few pounds a month and all from the comfort of your own home.