Katie Hickman: “‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ changed my life”

Katie Hickman is the author of eight books, including two bestselling works of non-fiction, Daughters of Britannia, and Courtesans, and a bestselling novel, The Aviary Gate.

Q: Your top ten books, in no special order, are...

“Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America by Jonathan Raban

Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford

The Diaries of Virgina Woolf by Virginia Woolf

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel”

Q: The one author who has inspired you to write better...

“Well there are two: Patrick Leigh Fermor for travel books and Hilary Mantel for fiction.”

Q: The phrase you will always remember...

“‘Are you much interested in death, Count?’ from Sybille Bedford’s A Visit to Don Otavio (perhaps the best book ever written about Mexico, by a non-Mexican).”

Q: Which is the one book that changed your life?

“The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe changed my life because, like Lazarus picking up his bed and walking, it made me pick up my book and read.”