Rosie Cowan answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen.

TPQ: What are you currently reading?

RC: I’ve just finished the latest release, Here to Stay, by one of my favourite authors, Mark Edwards. I love how Mark takes ordinary situations that could happen to anyone, in-laws who outstay their welcome, noisy neighbours, being mugged on holiday, and turns them into nightmares. I relish good psychological thrillers like tasty meals, and Peter Swanson, Belinda Bauer, CJ Tudor and Caroline Kepnes are among my current raves.

TPQ: Best book you have ever read?

RC: Ah now, that’s like asking someone to choose their favourite child. But a few of the many that have stayed with me are Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, a haunting, lyrical evocation of the First World War which made me weep. I recently read Faulks’ Engleby, about a working-class guy who doesn’t fit in at Cambridge, but not for the reasons you’d imagine, and I was once again awed by his range and depth, and how he completely enters his character’s heads.

Other stand-outs for me are The Kite Runner by Afghan writer, Khalid Hosseini, Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, and Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This last is a totally absorbing tale set during the 1967-70 Biafran War. My husband is Nigerian and we are both huge Adichie fans.

TPQ: A must-read before you die?

RC: At the risk of sounding horribly pretentious, I’m going to say Shakespeare, though of course he was a popular writer not thought of as highbrow in his day. My first degree was English Literature, and I spent a whole term studying all his plays, all human life is there, plots, motives, your favourite sayings. Better still, go see them. The first Shakespeare I ever saw was when I was 13, our school class was taken to see Macbeth at a local theatre and I was blown away. It’s still my favourite play and I’ve seen at least 20 different productions.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

RC: My heart goes with fiction, which has given me great joy all my life. I’m inspired that human beings can create these fabulous other worlds, and I also find comfort in the fact that pretty much whatever you’re going through, others have experienced and written about.

But as a former journalist turned law student, I read a lot of factual books, particularly about this part of the world. Two of the best are Ten Men Dead, on the hunger strike, by my former Guardian colleague, David Beresford, and Lethal Allies, a brilliant expose of security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, by my good friend, Anne Cadwallader. Both these books are meticulously researched and incredibly moving. Unquiet Graves, Sean Murray’s stunning documentary based on Lethal Allies, recently won a well-deserved Royal Television Society award.

I love many genres though, including short stories and poetry. I wrote my first Master’s thesis on Frank O’Connor, and Guests of the Nation is still a seminal piece. I’m a big Seamus Heaney fan, I heard him read as a school kid and was lucky to see him again a few years before he died, a local giant indeed. I also love the poetry of Rumi, it’s wonderful that a 13th century Sufi mystic can speak directly to me today.

TPQ: Favourite female author?

RC: Quite a few! Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies made me feel I was right there in Tudor times and her characterisation of Thomas Cromwell is phenomenal. Her short stories are also razor sharp, check out The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. Two other dazzling writers are Helen Dunmore, sadly passed away now, and Kate Atkinson. Donna Tartt only writes a book every decade or so but they’re worth waiting for. Her debut, A Secret History, about a group of posh WASP kids at a New England boarding school and the repercussions of their actions, made a big impression on me and I also loved The Goldfinch. Back to psychological thrillers, the late great Ruth Rendell and PD James were absolute doyennes of that genre. I have read all their books and many of the plots stick in my mind years later.

TPQ: Favourite male author?

RC: Apart from the others I’ve already mentioned, Graham Greene. The End of the Affair is beyond heartbreaking. I also love his British diplomat abroad books, he has a wonderful sense of comedy, pathos, place and time. John Le Carre is up there too, he’s so clever and George Smiley is one of the best characters ever. Interestingly I’ve picked two former spies who became disillusioned with the British establishment but wrote novels full of juicy intrigue.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.

TPQ: First book you ever read?

RC: My mother was a primary school teacher who taught me to read and write as a toddler and I’ve had a book in my hand almost ever since. Both my parents also read to me a lot. First book was probably fairy tales, I had several volumes akin to the original Grimm brothers, quite weird and not at all Disney sweetness and light. My mother was also obsessed with the Tudors, so I grew up knowing everything about Henry V111 and Anne Boleyn. No wonder I’m so fascinated with crime and dark psychology. Back in olden times before the internet, we also had a marvellous atlas, which included lots of history and geology as well as maps. I used to spend hours poring over it, dreaming of all the countries I’d visit.

TPQ: Favourite childhood author?

RC: I loved The Chronicles of Narnia by Belfast author, CS Lewis. I totally believed there was a secret world through the back of the wardrobe and spent hours at night trying to catch my own bedroom furniture out. Now I’m at Queen’s University Belfast where we have the real Narnia wardrobe doors in the McClay library and I take great pleasure going through them to sit in the Lewis reading room.

TPQ: Any book you point blank refuse to read?

RC: When all the fuss began about Fifty Shades of Grey, I looked it up online and read a few pages, and I honestly thought it was a parody. But EL James is the one laughing now, all the way to the bank.

TPQ: Any author you point blank refuse to read?

RC: I picked up Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code at a holiday villa out of sheer boredom and left it down again for exactly the same reason. But like EL James, he’s a hugely popular multi-millionaire, and it would be very tedious if we all like the same books. And I certainly ain’t dissing popular writers. I greatly admire Stephen King, he’s a fantastically visual storyteller.

TPQ: Pick a book to give to somebody so that they would more fully understand you.

RC: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it in my early teens and instantly fell in love with Atticus Finch, the white lawyer who defends a black man falsely accused of rape in 1930s Alabama. The story is all the more poignantly seen through the eyes of his young daughter, Scout. I’ve always believed in standing up for truth and equality, it’s what inspired me to be a journalist and now to study law. Go Set a Watchman, controversially published after Lee’s death, is all the more thought-provoking because the young adult Scout still loves her father, who is a racist in this book.

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present? 

RC: I gave a young friend Chimamande Adichie’s book essay, We Should All Be Feminists Now, everyone should read it. Books make wonderful gifts. For my most recent birthday, my university friends bought me a beautiful book with a poem for each day of the year. I love the Icelandic tradition of giving books and snuggling up to read them on Christmas Eve. I belong to a book club with six female friends and we do a secret Santa book swap at Christmas. The book club is great as we meet monthly and take it in turns to choose books, so you get to read things you’d never normally pick up.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

RC: I can think of some that shouldn’t have been, Fifty Shades, The Da Vinci Code, but also great movies of my favourite books. Gregory Peck is a brilliant Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, and who can forget Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece, The Shining, though author Stephen King apparently hates it. My first-mentioned author here, Mark Edwards’ books would make thrilling, edge-of-your-seat movies. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Netflix series of Caroline Kepnes creepy stalker novel, You. She plays that trick of making you like the psycho, Joe, even though you really, really shouldn’t. Maybe it’s because he runs a lovely bookshop. I’ve already read the sequel, Hidden Bodies, but I am eagerly awaiting its Boxing Day premiere.

⏭ Rosie Cowan is a former Guardian Ireland and crime correspondent, now doing a PhD in criminal law at Queen’s University Belfast.

Booker's Dozen @ Rosie Cowan


Rosie Cowan answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen.

TPQ: What are you currently reading?

RC: I’ve just finished the latest release, Here to Stay, by one of my favourite authors, Mark Edwards. I love how Mark takes ordinary situations that could happen to anyone, in-laws who outstay their welcome, noisy neighbours, being mugged on holiday, and turns them into nightmares. I relish good psychological thrillers like tasty meals, and Peter Swanson, Belinda Bauer, CJ Tudor and Caroline Kepnes are among my current raves.

TPQ: Best book you have ever read?

RC: Ah now, that’s like asking someone to choose their favourite child. But a few of the many that have stayed with me are Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, a haunting, lyrical evocation of the First World War which made me weep. I recently read Faulks’ Engleby, about a working-class guy who doesn’t fit in at Cambridge, but not for the reasons you’d imagine, and I was once again awed by his range and depth, and how he completely enters his character’s heads.

Other stand-outs for me are The Kite Runner by Afghan writer, Khalid Hosseini, Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, and Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This last is a totally absorbing tale set during the 1967-70 Biafran War. My husband is Nigerian and we are both huge Adichie fans.

TPQ: A must-read before you die?

RC: At the risk of sounding horribly pretentious, I’m going to say Shakespeare, though of course he was a popular writer not thought of as highbrow in his day. My first degree was English Literature, and I spent a whole term studying all his plays, all human life is there, plots, motives, your favourite sayings. Better still, go see them. The first Shakespeare I ever saw was when I was 13, our school class was taken to see Macbeth at a local theatre and I was blown away. It’s still my favourite play and I’ve seen at least 20 different productions.

TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?

RC: My heart goes with fiction, which has given me great joy all my life. I’m inspired that human beings can create these fabulous other worlds, and I also find comfort in the fact that pretty much whatever you’re going through, others have experienced and written about.

But as a former journalist turned law student, I read a lot of factual books, particularly about this part of the world. Two of the best are Ten Men Dead, on the hunger strike, by my former Guardian colleague, David Beresford, and Lethal Allies, a brilliant expose of security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, by my good friend, Anne Cadwallader. Both these books are meticulously researched and incredibly moving. Unquiet Graves, Sean Murray’s stunning documentary based on Lethal Allies, recently won a well-deserved Royal Television Society award.

I love many genres though, including short stories and poetry. I wrote my first Master’s thesis on Frank O’Connor, and Guests of the Nation is still a seminal piece. I’m a big Seamus Heaney fan, I heard him read as a school kid and was lucky to see him again a few years before he died, a local giant indeed. I also love the poetry of Rumi, it’s wonderful that a 13th century Sufi mystic can speak directly to me today.

TPQ: Favourite female author?

RC: Quite a few! Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies made me feel I was right there in Tudor times and her characterisation of Thomas Cromwell is phenomenal. Her short stories are also razor sharp, check out The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. Two other dazzling writers are Helen Dunmore, sadly passed away now, and Kate Atkinson. Donna Tartt only writes a book every decade or so but they’re worth waiting for. Her debut, A Secret History, about a group of posh WASP kids at a New England boarding school and the repercussions of their actions, made a big impression on me and I also loved The Goldfinch. Back to psychological thrillers, the late great Ruth Rendell and PD James were absolute doyennes of that genre. I have read all their books and many of the plots stick in my mind years later.

TPQ: Favourite male author?

RC: Apart from the others I’ve already mentioned, Graham Greene. The End of the Affair is beyond heartbreaking. I also love his British diplomat abroad books, he has a wonderful sense of comedy, pathos, place and time. John Le Carre is up there too, he’s so clever and George Smiley is one of the best characters ever. Interestingly I’ve picked two former spies who became disillusioned with the British establishment but wrote novels full of juicy intrigue.

A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning.

TPQ: First book you ever read?

RC: My mother was a primary school teacher who taught me to read and write as a toddler and I’ve had a book in my hand almost ever since. Both my parents also read to me a lot. First book was probably fairy tales, I had several volumes akin to the original Grimm brothers, quite weird and not at all Disney sweetness and light. My mother was also obsessed with the Tudors, so I grew up knowing everything about Henry V111 and Anne Boleyn. No wonder I’m so fascinated with crime and dark psychology. Back in olden times before the internet, we also had a marvellous atlas, which included lots of history and geology as well as maps. I used to spend hours poring over it, dreaming of all the countries I’d visit.

TPQ: Favourite childhood author?

RC: I loved The Chronicles of Narnia by Belfast author, CS Lewis. I totally believed there was a secret world through the back of the wardrobe and spent hours at night trying to catch my own bedroom furniture out. Now I’m at Queen’s University Belfast where we have the real Narnia wardrobe doors in the McClay library and I take great pleasure going through them to sit in the Lewis reading room.

TPQ: Any book you point blank refuse to read?

RC: When all the fuss began about Fifty Shades of Grey, I looked it up online and read a few pages, and I honestly thought it was a parody. But EL James is the one laughing now, all the way to the bank.

TPQ: Any author you point blank refuse to read?

RC: I picked up Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code at a holiday villa out of sheer boredom and left it down again for exactly the same reason. But like EL James, he’s a hugely popular multi-millionaire, and it would be very tedious if we all like the same books. And I certainly ain’t dissing popular writers. I greatly admire Stephen King, he’s a fantastically visual storyteller.

TPQ: Pick a book to give to somebody so that they would more fully understand you.

RC: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it in my early teens and instantly fell in love with Atticus Finch, the white lawyer who defends a black man falsely accused of rape in 1930s Alabama. The story is all the more poignantly seen through the eyes of his young daughter, Scout. I’ve always believed in standing up for truth and equality, it’s what inspired me to be a journalist and now to study law. Go Set a Watchman, controversially published after Lee’s death, is all the more thought-provoking because the young adult Scout still loves her father, who is a racist in this book.

TPQ: Last book you gave as a present? 

RC: I gave a young friend Chimamande Adichie’s book essay, We Should All Be Feminists Now, everyone should read it. Books make wonderful gifts. For my most recent birthday, my university friends bought me a beautiful book with a poem for each day of the year. I love the Icelandic tradition of giving books and snuggling up to read them on Christmas Eve. I belong to a book club with six female friends and we do a secret Santa book swap at Christmas. The book club is great as we meet monthly and take it in turns to choose books, so you get to read things you’d never normally pick up.

TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?

RC: I can think of some that shouldn’t have been, Fifty Shades, The Da Vinci Code, but also great movies of my favourite books. Gregory Peck is a brilliant Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, and who can forget Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic masterpiece, The Shining, though author Stephen King apparently hates it. My first-mentioned author here, Mark Edwards’ books would make thrilling, edge-of-your-seat movies. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Netflix series of Caroline Kepnes creepy stalker novel, You. She plays that trick of making you like the psycho, Joe, even though you really, really shouldn’t. Maybe it’s because he runs a lovely bookshop. I’ve already read the sequel, Hidden Bodies, but I am eagerly awaiting its Boxing Day premiere.

⏭ Rosie Cowan is a former Guardian Ireland and crime correspondent, now doing a PhD in criminal law at Queen’s University Belfast.

11 comments:

  1. Rosie, a most engaging read: a veritable journey into another world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute this, Anthony, I enjoyed doing it and realised I kind of went on a wee life story journey when thinking back over my favourite books, I wonder if other contributors did a similar trip?

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  3. Rosie - it was superb. When we first tried it out there was a discussion on the blog about it - some feeling that the more expansive autobiographical approach was much more purposeful for the theme. Having read that approach compared to the more slimline I came to agree with it so I am pleased you took that approach. The "Wee life journey" you refer to brings Booker's Dozen to life. Thanks for taking the time.

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  4. Rosie, it is, and I see a number of contributors shared a fondness for a couple of the same books; or mention another book that conjures another old memory. However when reading your contribution I was thinking I could not place who you are in relation with PTQ so there was a bit if detachment until you unmasked yourself as Rosebud. I realise as this slot progresses contributions will be made by people who post using an aliases... should the piece be under their real name or their more recognisable username?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Christy, do you know I didn't even register I had used Rosebud to comment, it's my Twitter handle, an old childhood nickname and also a nod to one of my favourite movies. I suppose I could change it to my real name, wasn't intending to do a John Le Carre Smiley's people!

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  5. Really enjoyed that....auld Atticus seems to be very popular among the contributors to the Booker's Dozen

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Niall, yep Atticus is a good 'un in Mockingbird but a racist aul b* in Go Set a Watchman, but it's an interesting question, can a liberal daughter still love and respect a racist parent like Scout does?

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  6. Ops! TPQ not PTQ ... PTQ being a forbidden read when you were a kid!!!

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    1. I remember PTQ as a teenager, the photos, wouldn't be allowed these days!!

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  7. Nice, enjoyed reading it thanks for sharing it.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks OR, it was nice for me to think back over some of my favourite reads

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