Susan Hill's Very Selective Book Meme

And here's Susan Hill's Very Selective Book Meme lifted out of comments here and also featuring on her blog .

1) A book that changed my life:
Virginia Woolf. A Writer`s Diary. I found it in Coventry Public Library when I was 16, in 1958, and I re-borrowed it half a dozen times a year until I could afford my own copy. It changed my life because I went from thinking that writing was what I liked to do and was all I was good at but probably was not a proper career, to seeing that it could be and would be. It is still my inspiration. It also hooked me on VW and all her work, for life.

2) One book that you've read more than once:
So SO many. The above. All of P.G.Wodehouse`s Jeeves and Blandings books. But probably, formatively, Dickens’ BLEAK HOUSE. It showed me how novels could be constructed with many different narratives threads going at once.

3) A book to take to a Desert Island:
I have been a guest on DESERT ISLAND DISCS twice, non-swanks, and both times I took Nancy Mitford`s THE PURSUIT OF LOVE. I would do so again because it unfailingly makes me laugh and you`d need to have that in your solitude. So long as I have The Bible and Shakespeare as well.

4) A book that made you laugh:
See above. Also, THE MATING SEASON by P.G.WODEHOUSE. Side-aching laughter.

5) A book that made you cry:
Black Beauty of course. But I have rarely cried over books.

6) A book I wish I'd written:
To the Lighthouse

7) A book I wish hadn't been written:
The Da Vinci Code.  Not a bad read but look where it`s led …why don`t they all SHUT UP.

8) Currently reading:
1,000 books at once as usual but if you want what I was reading last night and this morning, Medieval Monasticism by C.Lawrence and Chateau d’Argol by Julien Gracq. You won`t want to read the first but do read the second.. one of those small and perfectly formed Pushkin Press obscure European novels Lynne and I love. Oh, and a lot more submissions for the Long Barn Books First Novel for 2007 Competition.

9) Book I've been meaning to read:
Anything by Jane Austen yet again, to see if I can get along with her after all – but I know I won`t.