Books by Jeanette Winterson

“It’s about a soldier, Henri, who roasts chickens for Napoleon. That’s his job. He goes around during, before and after the battles, making sure that Napoleon has enough roast chicken. At some point, he meets a prostitute named Villanelle. Villanelle is a gondolier’s daughter from Venice, who has webbed feet. So already we know we’re in magic realism territory, but not too much. It’s like rich pastry, this book…It’s like the way Venice is. You can go there, particularly during Carnival, when everybody wears masks, and become transformed into something other than yourself.” Read more...

Historical Novels Set in Italy

Tracy Chevalier, Historical Novelist

“This is the novelised version of her life that she wrote when she was much younger. Then she wrote the real version as a normal memoir years later, and called it, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? The fact that Jeanette Winterson’s mother threw her out of the house because she was a lesbian, and said terrible things to her like, ‘I adopted the wrong baby, I adopted a bad baby’ – is just a really shockingly cruel way of behaving. But Jeanette Winterson overcame it. Maybe she got, from her mother, some of her strength. Her mother was clearly a very strong person, so she’s got this ambivalence about her.” Read more...

Five Memoirs by Women

Dorothy Byrne, Journalist

“I’ve picked this book because it covers two of the most important areas of innovation: artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. These are going to be responsible for gigantic changes in our society in the future…Winterson’s book helps me think about the dangers of corporate monopolisation of the technology of artificial intelligence, and about the ethical responsibilities of creating and tinkering with life. But it also prompts questions about what it means to be human, about the creation of life, about what life is, about the future of humanity” Read more...

The best books on Global Challenges

Rowan Hooper, Journalist

“Somehow Jeanette Winterson telling the story from the donkey’s point of view, makes the Nativity story seem real, with all the smells from the stable and Joseph’s optimism that they’ll find a room” Read more...

The best books on Christmas

Father Christmas, Miscellaneou