12. The first novel you remember reading.

I read a lot of short novels at around the same age, so I’ll stick a couple down.

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” by J.K Rowling.

It was inevitably going to come up at some time. The Harry Potter books were the books of my childhood, and I used to be totally obsessed by them.  I had all pf the merchandise, loved the movies, and could recite large passages by heart. Sad, I know. But nonetheless, it was one of the first books I remember enjoying enough to use on this list. Because everyone loves a bit of Potter.

 ”The Roman Mysteries: The Thieves of Ostia” by Caroline Lawrence.

I genuinely loved this book, and the whole series, which still hasn’t finished after about thirteen books (though I haven’t read the last four or so). The basic plotline is that Flavia Gemina, an ancient Roman girl, solves a mystery, but then unwittingly discovers a far bigger one, which she proceeds to solve with her friends Nubia, the slave, Jonathan, the then-illegal Christian, and Lupus, the mute. Ideal plotline for a young children’s book, and there was an unbelievable amount of history and classical mythology in there too, which is definitely where my love of both originated.

“Watership Down” by Richard Adams. 

 Pretty much the most scarring book of all time. The story of rabbits that run away from their burrow because one of their number, Fiver, has a premonition that it is in danger. The book then charts their trials and tribulations of their journey to find a new burrow. The main thing I remember about this book (unusually for me) is the film - fields full of blood, and “Bright Eyes” playing in the background whilst the spirits of the dead bunnies running across the field… oh God, I can feel myself welling up just thinking about it.