Friday, October 20, 2017

Books that made me / Shami Chakrabarti / ‘Harry Potter offers a great metaphor for the war on terror’

‘Before you write you have to read’ … Shami Chakrabarti. Photograph: Sarah Lee

Books

that

made me

Shami Chakrabarti: ‘Harry Potter offers a great metaphor for the war on terror’

The Labour politician on the book she wishes she had written and why she couldn’t finish Fifty Shades of Grey

Chami Chakrabarti
Friday 20 October 2017

The book I am currently reading

Ali Smith’s Winter. The second in the seasonal cycle by the greatest English language novelist of recent times.

The book that changed the world

I reread The Female Eunuch recently and parts are still so relevant nearly 50 years on. It’s also hard to believe that Germaine Greer was barely 30 when she wrote it.

The book I’d wished I’d written

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. The original feminist trailblazer. Why no statue of her?

The book that had the greatest influence on my writing

To Kill a Mockingbird. Before you write you have to read. I read this at school aged 15 under the guidance of an inspiring young teacher called Mary Bousted (now a leading trade unionist). Race, sex, class and the yearning for justice: it is all there.

The last book that made me cry

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes. I’m sure I’ve shed the odd reader’s tear subsequently but this was special. The tears came from exquisitely understated and honest writing even more than the subject of grief for a dear departed love.

The book I think is most underrated

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It’s my favourite in JK Rowling’s popular series. All those copies sold; all those young readers. Great thinly veiled metaphor for the worst excesses of the war on terror, from total surveillance to torture.

The book I couldn’t finish

Fifty Shades of Grey. Because you cannot finish what you never started.

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read

Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds’s Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan. Nick is the shadow solicitor-general and a rising star in the parliamentary Labour party. I loved his book on Attlee so I really need to make time for Bevan.

The book I most often give as a gift

Eleanor Marx: a Life, the last book by our great contemporary feminist biographer Rachel Holmes. The last page of Chapter 18 (page 333 of the paperback version ) is prophetic. If you look it up you will understand.

The book I’d most like to be remembered for

Of Women: In the 21st Century … Well, I would say that would say that wouldn’t I?

THE GUARDIAN