The 50 Authors Who Shaped Me

It took me a long while to compile my list of "The 50 Authors who Shaped Me" – it was so difficult to choose only fifty from the thousands of authors whose work meant so much to me through my life.

When I began, I realised that many of the books that I had chosen were my favourite childhood books. Of course this makes sense, as the books we read when we are children make such a deep impression upon our psyche. However, I wanted to see how favourite books in each decade of my life worked to change and direct me.

In the end, I made strict rules. I could only choose fiction; and I had to name the ten authors in each decade of my life whose work had transformed my life in some way.

I call the novels on this list my "touchstone" books.

0 - 10 (1966-1976)

1. C.S. Lewis – The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
2. Enid Blyton – Five Go to Treasure Island
3. Eleanor Farjeon – The Glass Slipper
4. Elizabeth Goudge – The Little White Horse
5. Nicholas Stuart Grey – The Stone Cage
6. Joan Aiken – The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
7. J.R.R Tolkien – The Hobbit
8. Frances Hodgson Barnett –The Secret Garden
9. Susan Cooper – The Dark Is Rising
10. Geoffrey Trease – Cue for Treason

11 - 20 (1977-1986)

1. Ursula le Guin – A Wizard Of Earthsea
2. L.M. Montgomery – Emily of New Moon
3. E. J. Oxenham – New Abbey Girls
4. Anne Frank – Diary of a Young Girl
5. Dodie Smith – I Capture The Castle
6. Georgette Heyer – These Old Shades
7. Mary Stewart – The Moon-Spinners
8. Mary Webb – Precious Bane
9. Jane Austen – Persuasion
10. Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre

21 - 30 (1987-1996)

1. Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights
2. Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
3. Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird
4. Jane Yolen – Briar Rose
5. Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Mists of Avalon
6. Robin McKinley – Beauty
7. Isabel Allende – The House of Spirits
8. Alice Walker – The Color Purple
9. E.M. Forster – A Room With A View
10. Tad Williams – The Dragonbone Chair

31 - 40 (1997-2006)

1. Jeannette Winterson – The Passion
2. Barbara Kingsolver – The Poisonwood Bible
3. Susan Vreeland – Girl in Hyacinth Blue
4. Juliet Marillier – Daughter of the Forest
5. Kim Wilkins – Angel of Ruin
6. Tracy Chevalier – Falling Angels
7. Joanne Harris – Five Quarters Of The Orange
8. Sarah Dunant – The Birth of Venus
9. Geraldine Brooks – The Year of Wonders
10. Carlos Ruiz Zafron – The Shadow of the Wind

41 - 50 (2007-2016)

1. C. J. Sansom – Dissolution
2. Phillipa Gregory – The Queen's Fool
3. Marcus Zusak – The Book Thief
4. Mary Ann Schaffer – The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
5. Kate Morton – The Forgotten Garden
6. Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
7. Karen Maitland - Company of Liars
8. Kate Mosse – Labyrinth
9. Sarah Waters – Affinity
10. A.S. Byatt – Possession