As I mentioned yesterday, I was interviewed for radio about the upcoming Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature...which was scary enough in itself but then the lovely Lucy asked me...what's your favourite book???



How can I answer that? It can vary from day to day or from period in my life....how do you define favourite book? The one that lives in your head and that you escape to during quiet or stressful moments? The one that has altered your world perspective? The one with the hero you never forgot? The one with the heroine you always wanted to be? The one that took to you to a place you always wanted to go? The one where you learned so much it hurt?



Put on the spot (yes, I know I should have anticipated this question) I answer Katherine by Anya Seaton and Leo the African by Amin Maaloof. And they are two of my favourite books...but there are so many more for all of the reasons above.



I could have said...The Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman or Constance:A Story of Early Plymouth by Patricia Clapp (note to self - must find a copy of this for DD) or Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, or Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant...the list could go on and on...



What are your favourite books and why?



And because I think it's one of the best first lines ever...from Leo the African...



'I, Hassan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, nor from Europe, nor from Arabia.'



Note: will be running a contest for free tickets to my session...(description session here) - First Fictions at the Emirates Festival of Literature. Details to follow...