The Books That Made Me
On my wall I have a book that is framed in a silver-coloured box frame with a hinged front, so that I can access it should I need it. I almost feel like this box frame should have a sign next to it saying, “break glass in an emergency”. Because this book has been my go-to book since I was a child and even now when times get dark, I’ll revert to this story to take me to magical lands away from the worries of the world.
This book is The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. It’s the story and book I adore, mine in its old yellow binding, frayed at the edges, pages fading to yellow with love and wear. Even now eating jacket potatoes simply with salt and butter, takes me back to salivating about the food’s they’d eat on their magical adventures. I adore books that I can virtually taste, smell, touch and feel what is happening within them. This is the book I retreat to when I need to recharge my batteries and protect my inner child.
My home is full of books, towering stacks wavering precariously around every corner and on every shelf. My old favourites look worn and loved on the shelves next to ones that have a place within my read again or to be read pile. I collect antique books about herbs, flowers, botany and fairy tales. I adore Alice in Wonderland and collect various editions and versions of these stories. I collect books in general on herbs, magic, wonder, and have one bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks because they have gorgeous photos in them. I am a sucker for folio society special editions and just any books that have beautiful bindings in vibrant reds, greens, and blues. The current modern trend to spraying the book edges with beautiful patterns is damaging for my bank balance and if it has a soft touch cover, I’ll probably purchase even if it’s not content, I would normally read.
Books make me feel safe, books feel like home, they are my self-care.
As a child I loved books about magical locations and magical beings, Enid Blyton’s magical tales of places to travel to via wishing chairs and faraway trees. Peter Pan, and the old fashion fairy tales that many of us grew up with. As I got older the stories of Narnia and battles with snow queens filled my head, and the dark stories by Joan Aiken I would read again and again.
Even then my reading was quite diverse. I loved delving into mystery stories of Kay Tracey and Nancy Drew, alongside stories of ghosts, fairies, witches and the supernatural. There was an annual that my mum could only get me occasionally called Misty and I always longed to be Misty, with her long dark hair and silver white streak at the front. Which if anyone knows me will know that’s how I turned out in the end, though more silver now than dark.
As a teenager I was reading books aimed at adults. I loved and still love the old classics, Wuthering Heights, Dracula and Frankenstein along with other dark gothic tales. I found murder mystery’s too predictable so stopped reading those. Instead, I read Tolkien and David Eddings and emersed myself in alternative worlds, the perfect escapism, my selfcare.
And then came along Terry Pratchett. I felt like someone was inside my head writing words down on paper like the very thoughts that scrambled around in my skull. I devoured every book he brought out for years right through my teens and twenties and at one point I owned almost all of them (I sold them for fund raising for a charity).
It was in my late teens that I discovered non-fiction books on witchcraft, dreams, fortune telling, and I soon started collecting these as avidly as I did my Terry Pratchett’s. Rae Beth’s Hedge Witch – a guide to solitary witchcraft felt like a coming home book, as did Marian ‘Green’s A Witch Alone. I’d found out who I was and the name to give myself. Witch.
What’s interesting is both these books talk about doing things on your own and it was then highlighting to me that I am an introvert, but at that time I didn’t have the name for it.
Many of those witchy books I purchased in my teens and twenties covered topics which now would be in a self-help section. Mindfulness, meditation, setting boundaries, using essential oils and herbs in healing, crystals, being in nature, honouring your cycles, conserving your energy, being true to yourself. And it’s from here I started reading more on self-help and personal development. Victoria Moran’s Creating a Charmed life is one of my early favourites and Valerie Ann Worwood’s ‘The Fragrant Pharmacy’. The latter book inspired me to qualify as an aromatherapist in my twenties.
In my 20’s and 30’s my fiction reading was mainly contained to my holidays. I’d still buy everything I could on the themes I loved, but often I’d find films would influence my choices first. Like Practical Magic where upon watching the film I had to read the book (it’s very different) and I fell in love with the writing of Alice Hoffman. The film Chocolat introduced me to Joanne Harris and the way you can taste and smell her stories as you read them, takes me back to my Enid Blyton books of my childhood. I love Joanne’s style of writing and her passion for fairy tales. Sarah Addision Allen stories evoke my senses in a similar way my favourite being Garden Spells. I adore Susanna Clarke and in particular Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell I love getting lost in worlds like these, which means Lani Taylor, Paula Brackston and Deborah Harkness are amongst my favourite authors too.
It was the Harry Potter books that sparked my interest in being a writer, though on finding old notebooks and diaries I had been thinking of writing since my late teens. I didn’t read the books at first, thinking they were just a publicity stunt and then I read J K Rowling’s story of how she became a writer, and I realised it was possible for me too. The books gave me that same escapism as I’d had in my Magic Faraway Tree book, and I remember thinking “what if I could write one book that could save someone. One book that might help them cope with the traumas in life. One book that could give someone hope”.
I envisaged that book would be a children’s book, though I did find a diary from 2008 saying a children’s book or a self-help book were on my vision board to have been written by the time I was 50. So that is one achieved so far with ‘The Book of Personality Tests’. I’ve got 18 months to write some more, and my next personal development book is in progress.
I find writing children’s books and reading them really relaxing, they are stories where I can get emersed and don’t have to think about in the same way as you do with adult fiction. When I’m tired and feeling depleted, reading children’s stories are still my favourite way to escape. ‘The Apprentice Witch’ by my dear friend James Nicol, I’ve read 6 times. I also adore everything my Frances Hardinge. I could write a page of all the children’s books by my amazing children’s writers’ family that I am part of.
Now I read lots on self-help, and personal development. As an energy mindset mentor, I am always looking to continue my personal development journey and books are an easy way to do this. As I am busy, I like books I can dip in and out of. And I know many people like me who have been depleted, or feel exhausted, tired, or burnt out, want easy to read books. I love dipping in and out of Light is the New Black by Rebecca Campbell, Get Rich Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield Thomas and She Means Business by Carrie Green, to name a few.
When I open a book and see lots of small dense lines of writing it puts me off, I want books to feel fun, be visual and not be hard to take in, that can in some way stimulate all my senses. Over the years it’s the books that have got me through burnout, got me through life’s trauma’s and the books mentioned above have shaped who I am today.