Books by Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson is a British novelist and author.
“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
“Her family used to go to religious caravan festivals. The scene that remains in my mind is where they’re out in an enormous tent in some field. She’s having to continually abide by this sect, but she’s gay and can’t wait to get out. She is absolutely an alien in her own family, but she’s not relentlessly judging it. I think it’s one of the best semi-autobiographical novels you can get your hands on. It’s absolutely brilliant.” Read more...
The Best Historical Novels Set in the 1980s
Eleanor Anstruther, Novelist
“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 for Kids on Christmas
Father Christmas, Miscellaneou
Interviews where books by Jeanette Winterson were recommended
The Best Books for Kids on Christmas, recommended by Father Christmas
Shelve your cynicism – Santa Claus does exist, and he took the time out to tell us his five favourite Christmas-time books. He’s more of a pictures than words kind of guy, and he’s been to Las Vegas.
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1
The Sixth Extinction
by Elizabeth Kolbert -
2
Frankissstein: A Novel
by Jeanette Winterson -
3
The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
by Kim Stanley Robinson -
4
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
by Jason Hickel -
5
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
by Paul Hawken (editor)
The best books on Global Challenges, recommended by Rowan Hooper
The best books on Global Challenges, recommended by Rowan Hooper
Which are the most pressing global challenges we face today? In How to Spend a Trillion Dollars Rowan Hooper, a senior editor at the New Scientist, makes the case for the ones he considers the most urgent. Here, he recommends books that help illuminate some of those challenges—including the amazing resource that is ‘Project Drawdown’.
The Best Historical Novels Set in the 1980s, recommended by Eleanor Anstruther
With its music and fashion and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, the 1980s are ripe for fiction, argues Eleanor Anstruther, author of Fallout, a novel about the decades-long protest against cruise missiles at Greenham Common. She recommends five of her favourites—including two Booker Prize winners—from the excesses of Thatcherite London to a coming of age on the slagheaps of Glasgow.
Five Memoirs by Women, recommended by Dorothy Byrne
We have much to learn from the lives of women who came before us, says Dorothy Byrne, the British TV journalist and producer who is now president of a women’s college at the University of Cambridge. She recommends five of her favourite memoirs, all by women and notable for their searing truthfulness about everyday life.
Historical Novels Set in Italy, recommended by Tracy Chevalier
Historical novels are at their most compelling when they get the details of daily life in the past right, argues bestselling author Tracy Chevalier. She picks five of her favorite historical novels set in Italy, from 16th-century Florence to 1950s Naples, with a couple of stops in Venice, where her own latest novel, The Glassmaker, is set.
