The best books about the magic in the ordinary

I read this book as quickly as I could, picking it up whenever I had the chance to, and thinking about it in the moments in between. I found it in an outdoor library, in a small village in France. It was the only book in English, so it was complete chance that I started to read it. And this book is all about chance. What would happen if you bumped into someone who looked so exactly like you that they could step into your life and live it for you, and no one would notice? This book constantly questions how much of our identity is shaped by things outside of our control. It is set in a world we recognise but under the ordinary façade, something eerier and more fatalistic simmers.

This historical novel is set in the 1500s and follows the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of the infamous Henry VIII. Hilary Mantel’s writing is unlike anything else I’ve read. Her prose is somehow rich and full yet feather-light. Incredibly I found myself falling for a character who I’d learnt at school was a calculating, cold, and violent man. With great skill and the merest breath of the supernatural, she plays with language and tense, to make us feel that we are Cromwell – that we have his thoughts. This text takes some getting used to but once you’ve dived into it, the reward is a world described in such detail and with such tenderness it will stay with you for a long time. I loved it.

I was born in a fishing village in Yorkshire and although I live in the city now, I always feel the pull of the sea. This book is a memoir set in Orkney and London. It is about the writer’s struggle with addiction and her recovery – partly through reconnecting to the natural landscape again. Amy’s prose is clean and bright. She constructs sentences with no fat on them. Her descriptions are sharply accurate. I really related to her need to get away from London to find her way back to health. London life is intense and although I love it here, it is a constantly demanding city. Reading this novel reinforced my desire to look at things closely, notice them anew, and to remember to go and visit the sea, whenever I can. 

This is a children’s book published in 1963. My mother read it to me, and now I read it to my daughter. It is, quite simply, wonderful. You probably know this book already, but just in case you don’t, it’s about a little boy called Max who is sent to his room without a meal because he has been naughty and ends up going on a magical journey to a land of wild monsters, where he becomes king. Eventually he returns and finds his warm supper waiting for him. I love this book. It spoke to me as an imaginative child. Here I found language that believed that underneath everything, there was magic, "That very night in Max’s room, a forest grew…" The illustrations are perfect too. Read it.

This is a memoir and poetry book rolled into one. It’s about the author’s experience of discovering she was pregnant at Glastonbury Festival and the three years afterward – taking us with her from pregnancy through to being the mother of a toddler. It is raw and funny and honest. It made me laugh and gasp and feel seen. I first came across Hollie’s poetry at a live event where she read from this book, and it made me furious and sad and I also laughed more than I had in a long time. This collection finds the magic of motherhood in amongst the mess and exhaustion. It looks unflinchingly at the day-to-day struggles to try to understand what it is to be a parent and a person.