So what exactly is a "life-affirming" read? For me, the very act of reading is life affirming. It's all about making connections with the world and the people in it, seeing through the eyes of another person. You might love them, you might hate them; even better you might do both. What matters is you care about them enough to keep turning the pages. Reading a story and thinking "Wow, I thought I was the only person who felt like that", or alternatively, "Wow, I'd never thought of it like that before", is what makes a book special for me, whether I'm reading fantasy, fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
A book that makes you laugh and feel good about the world can be life-affirming, but so can a book that makes you angry or that brings you to tears – what could be more life affirming than empathy? In fact a thread that runs through many of the books I've chosen (and, I hope, in the book I've written) is that they show the flaws and imperfections and in some cases the horror of what being alive means and they still somehow manage to show that life is beautiful, life is funny, life is worth fighting for, life is unimaginably precious, life must be lived.
1. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
I loved this book as a child and it wasn't until I re-read it recently that I realised it had influenced my own book, The Year of The Rat. Sour-faced orphan Mary Lennox discovers the secret garden which was once cherished by her aunt, who died in childbirth. With nature-loving Dickon and her unloved cousin Colin she brings the garden back to life, and as it begins to blossom, so do Mary and Colin. "Being alive is the Magic," cries Colin as the story reaches its denouement – it really doesn't get much more life-affirming than that.
2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
From the moment I read its famous opening line – "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink" – I was captivated by this book. We see the world instantly through the eyes of bookish, clever, self-deprecating Cassandra Mortmain and we love her and the world of impoverished eccentric English gentility she lives in. Not only that, we love every character in the book, despite the fact that every character in the book is flawed. No, we love them because they are flawed, which for me is the essence of a life affirming book – the embracing of imperfections. It's also hilarious and touching and romantic. It's impossible to read this book without feeling that being alive is a wonderful thing.
3. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
'There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind', Virginia Woolf wrote in her essay on women and fiction in 1928. I first read this book as a teenager and it felt life-changing. I was a girl who loved writing, and this made me feel that I could – and should – take this seriously. It made me feel that I was a part of something bigger, something exciting and daring, that creativity and unconventionality were to be celebrated. It is passionate and bold and I still find it utterly inspiring.
4. Skellig by David Almond
An astonishingly beautiful book about Michael, who finds the mysterious Skellig in the garage of his new house, an ancient man with wings on his back and a love of Chinese takeaways. As Michael's family struggles with the fact that his prematurely born baby sister may die, Michael's relationship with Skellig and with Mina, the precocious girl next door, develops. This book is about love and family and friendship, magic and dreams and things we don't understand that are at the edges of everyday life. "Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can't. We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine."
5. Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley
I often turn to poetry when I'm in need of a quick fix of life-affirmation. This wonderful poetry anthology encapsulates all the joy and pain of every stage of life: not only the more usual stuff of poetry (love, death, war) but also home, family, pets, travel, growing up and much more besides. Even if you don't think you're a "poetry person", you'll find a poem in here that speaks to you.
6. The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
I only recently discovered this beautiful picture book which explores the unhappy, scary, lonely place the world can sometimes feel. We don't often give children the chance to explore darker emotions, trying to make the world jolly and perfect and cuddly for them, but this book acknowledges the fear and sadness and isolation we all feel and shows that hope is always there, even if we can't always see it. Definitely a picture book that isn't just for little ones.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The story of Scout and Jem, set in the American Deep South of the 1950s, whose lawyer father Atticus defends a black man accused of rape, incurring the wrath of the townsfolk. It is about prejudice of many kinds, about standing up for what you know is right, and about seeing things from another person's point of view. Most of all it's about courage. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand," Atticus says to his children. "It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." We all need an Atticus in our lives.
8. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
It's the voice of spiky, vulnerable, funny Daisy that makes this book so instantly appealing and memorable but there's much more to it than that. It's an adventure set against the background of an imagined war in the near future, which disrupts the idyllic, adult-free life that New Yorker Daisy has found with her English cousins. Rosoff uncompromisingly shows the devastating and brutal effects of war. But at its heart it's a love story, the story of Daisy and Edmund, how their love sustains them. It's full of energy and humour and life and emotion, and for me personally it was reading this book that made me want to go off and write a book of my own.
9. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
To be honest I could have chosen any of Patrick Ness's books. He's so honest about his characters' failings or weaknesses or mistakes, and so compassionate towards them – as the Monster says in this book, most people aren't good guys or bad guys, but somewhere in between. This one stands out for me though. Based on an idea by another great author Siobhan Dowd, who sadly wasn't able to write it before she died, it tells the story of Conor, whose mum is terminally ill. It is about letting go, allowing yourself to accept feelings you think you shouldn't have, and most of all it's about love.
10. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Yes, OK, I know this is a bit of a cheat, but I couldn't leave him out. I fell in love with Shakespeare as a teenager, thanks to an English teacher who helped me see past the language to the truth and humour and drama of his plays. They have everything: teenagers falling in love and rebelling against their parents, power-hungry politicians, dysfunctional families, racism, murder, suicide, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, sibling rivalry, people falling in and out of love with the wrong people, and some brilliant (very rude) jokes. All of life is there to loved, laughed at, wept over and marvelled at.