Novelist Claire Fuller reflects on the books that shaped her life, from a childhood fascination with strange phenomena to discovering the power of language through Dylan Thomas.
Earliest Reading Memory
Fuller recalls learning to read at age five from a metal plaque on a coach: 'Mind your head when leaving your seat.'
Favourite Childhood Book
In the late 1970s, her father owned a copy of Phenomena by John Michell, which catalogues strange occurrences like showers of fish and spontaneous human combustion. 'I would lie on the carpet flicking through the pages and loving the chills,' she says.
Teenage Transformation
At 14, playing Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard in a school production of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas revealed writing's emotional power: 'It was when we were reading those mellifluous words aloud that I first understood that writing could make me feel everything.'
Book That Changed Her Mind
Learning to Love You More by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher presents creative assignments. 'The public assignments terrified me, but I discovered that I loved having done them,' Fuller explains.
Inspiration to Write
Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle was the first book she read through a writer's eyes, trying to understand how Jackson created the extraordinary Merricat.
Author Rediscovered
Fuller initially dismissed Denis Johnson's Angels 15 years ago, but later reading Train Dreams and Jesus' Son made his books among her favourites.
Book on Her Desk
She keeps Wildlife by Richard Ford nearby while writing: 'I often pick it up and read a page or two to remind myself what it is I'm supposed to be doing.'
Book She Won't Reread
Despite loving Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry last year, its 843 pages deter a second read as 'there are too many other books I want to read.'
Late Discovery
Having missed classics in youth, Fuller started reading one per year, beginning with Pride and Prejudice: 'And yes, I rather enjoyed it.'
Current Read
She runs a book club at Cabinet Rooms in Winchester and has selected Stephen King's The Stand to read over a year. 'I cannot wait to pick it up again.'
Comfort Author
Elizabeth Strout is her comfort author: 'I love her writing, her stories, her characters.' She recently finished Strout's latest, The Things We Never Say, calling it 'a delight.'
Fuller's novel Hunger and Thirst is published by Fig Tree.
