My bookcase is in the sitting room of my house in Saltdean, just outside Brighton. There are bookcases in every room but I’m especially fond of this one because it was built for us by our friends John and Colin. It’s yellow because most of the house is yellow. The colour of madness, according to my mum.

There’s a real mix of books here and they’re in no particularly order. I once worked in a library and think that put me off alphabetical order for life. Looking at this picture though I see that the Anne Tylers are together and so are the Anthony Trollopes. In general, if it’s fiction it’s mine; if it’s archaeology, war or biography it’s Andy’s. Andy does read fiction but he never rereads anything so I regularly ship his books off to the charity shop. He was browsing there recently and said, ‘They’ve got a lot of the same books as me.’ Well fancy that, I said.

I reread a lot so perhaps I’m not as good at trying new authors as I should be. My favourite author is Wilkie Collins and I read The Woman in White and The Moonstone every year. My favourite modern writers are David Lodge, Anne Tyler and Alison Lurie. I love all sorts of crime fiction but especially Lesley Thomson, CJ Samson and Phil Rickman. My Desert Island book would be The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse. I always read Wodehouse if I’m worried or depressed. My guilty pleasure is probably Georgette Heyer and, again, her books cheer me up if I’m anxious. I always have a Georgette Heyer book with me when I’m travelling. It’s a well-known fact that planes never crash if you’re reading The Devil’s Cub.

The book that changed my life was probably Fame is the Spur by Howard Spring. Spring isn’t read much now but he’s a terrific author and his books still have a lot of resonance today. Fame is the Spur is about a working-class boy who becomes a Labour politician only to sell out to the capitalists he once so despised. The book made me want to change the world through revolutionary politics. As you can see, that didn’t work out too well but I love authors who make you think about the world. I’ve just finished Jonathan Frazen’s The Corrections and thought it was fantastic. Mind you, if it had been by a woman it would have been dismissed as ‘domestic fiction’ rather than lauded as a powerful and compelling portrait of modern society (which it is).

The last book I gave as a present was Lesley Thomson’s A Kind of Vanishing. It’s a wonderful book and it’s set very near where I live, Tidemills in Newhaven. My most treasured book is probably my tattered copy of Alice in Wonderland. It’s the first book I remember reading. It’s not on the shelf because it’s falling apart. I keep it in my bedside cabinet. I looked at it recently and realised, for the first time, that it actually belongs to my sister. She’s written her name in it and everything. I’m not giving it back though.

Elly Griffiths