Graham Norton / ‘The Bell Jar changed how I felt about books’

Graham Norton

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Graham Norton: ‘The Bell Jar changed how I felt about books’

Graham Norton

Friday 20 June 2025

This article is more than 1 month old

The TV presenter and author on discovering the beauty of Charles Dickens and why John Fowles put him off writing for 30 years

My earliest reading memory

I started reading because I was wildly jealous of my sister Paula, who is four years older than me. I must have been six or seven when I managed to read The Mountain of Adventure by Enid Blyton. I know she is no longer in fashion but I still remember the thrill of the world she created and the excitement of the plot.

Graham Norton

My favourite book growing up

I adored the Flambards series by KM Peyton, probably because it felt slightly adult and a little bit sexy, but my absolute favourites were Grimble and Grimble at Christmas by Clement Freud. They were anarchic and knowing, in a way I hadn’t encountered before but more than anything else they were very funny. It also introduced me to the inspired illustrations of Quentin Blake.The book that changed me as a teenager

When I was around 15 or 16 we had a supply teacher and he brought with him plastic bags of novels and just threw them out to us sitting at our desks. I randomly caught The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath which really did change how I felt about books. It was funny, sophisticated and raw in a way I didn’t know novels could be. But more than that, as people say now, I felt seen. Esther Greenwood contained so many emotions and qualities that I recognised. I’m also happy to say that the supply teacher Niall is a good friend to this day!

The writer who changed my mind

When I was about 19 I remember reading the very start of Daniel Martin by John Fowles. He describes a German plane crashing into the British country side and it was so perfectly written that I resolved to never write books. What was the point? They would never be as good as these few pages. I took me more than 30 years to get over that feeling.

The book that made me want to be a writer

Prior to my John Fowles experience I had wanted to write and was scribbling down short stories, but I have no recollection of a moment or novelist that lit the spark. I think it was more the joy I found in telling tales and setting the scene. Everything I was reading just taught me that there was a way to do that and a world I could be a part of.The book or author I came back to

I think I was exposed to Charles Dickens too early and found him very dark and dense. It was only many years later, when I had to read Oliver Twist for work, that I realised how incredibly engaging and entertaining his books are. There is a passage towards the end of A Tale of Two Cities where Carton roams the streets of Paris contemplating his death, which is as beautiful and profound as anything I’ve ever read.

The book I reread

I very rarely reread anything but if I do it is probably during the summer in Ireland and it would tend to be a classic, like Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park or Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. There is such pleasure in finding out how much you’ve changed as different characters and plot points speak to you differently. Interesting how much we all bring a point of view to every novel we read.

The book I could never read again

I can’t imagine I will ever go back to the Just William series by Richmal Crompton. I loved them as a preteen but I fear I might find them a little less charming now.

The book I discovered later in life

The novels of Elizabeth Taylor were a fairly recent discovery for me. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is a stunning book. Wry, funny and heartbreaking, but never cruel. Maybe you have to be a little older to really enjoy it? I was also recommended the works of the late Octavia Butler recently. I rarely read sci-fi, but Kindred is the most visceral novel about the horrors of slavery that I’ve read.

The book I am currently reading

I’ve just finished Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. A sprawling saga about a damaged family which I really enjoyed.

My comfort read

Agatha Christie, what else? Grisly murders and neat solutions. A balm for any troubled soul.

 Frankie by Graham Norton is published in paperback by Coronet.

THE GUARDIAN

THE BOOKS OF MY LIFE

2021
The books of my life / Amanda Gorman / ‘I wanted my words to re-sanctify the steps of the Capitol’Mary Beard / ‘Virgil was a radical rap artist of the first century BC’
Stephen King: ‘I loved Lord of the Flies the way kids love Harry Potter’
Gabriel Byrne: ‘I’ve never played Hamlet, but in many ways I am him’
Curtis Sittenfeld / ‘Sweet Valley High is not respected – but I found the books riveting’
Elif Shafak / ‘Reading Orlando was like plunging into a cold but beautifully blue sea’
Jason Reynolds / “Reading rap lyrics made me realise that poetry could be for me”
Michael Rosen / ‘My comfort read? Great Expectations’
Siri Hustvedt / ‘I responded viscerally to De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex’
Alan Garner / ‘The Chronicles of Narnia are atrociously written’
Rose Tremain / ‘My comfort reads are MasterChef cookbooks’
Oliver Jeffers / ‘Catch-22 was the first time I had a physical reaction to a book’
Penelope Lively / ‘Beatrix Potter seemed so exotic, unlike my world of palm trees’


2022
David Baddiel / The book that changed me? John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
David Baddiel / The book that changed me? John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
Edmund White / ‘My earliest reading memory is a lady toad with a nasty temper’
David Mitchell / ‘If I need cheering up, Jamie Oliver’s recipes usually help’
Isabel Allende / ‘I have been displaced most of my life’
Barbara Kingsolver / ‘Middlemarch is about everything, for every person, at every age’


2023
Richard Ford / ‘I don’t read for comfort. Comfort I source elsewhere’
Bret Easton Ellis: ‘I connected with Quentin Tarantino’
Lauren Groff / ‘Virginia Woolf’s Flush is delightfully bananas’
Natalie Haynes / ‘I couldn’t stop reading Stephen King - even at the top of the Eiffel Tower’
Richard Armitage / ‘I used to stand on the Lord of the Rings to reach the top shelf in my wardrobe’

2024
Mieko Kawakami / “Franz Kafka es mi lectura reconfortante”

2025
Niall Williams / ‘When I first read Chekhov, I thought: “He’s not so great”’
Graham Norton / ‘The Bell Jar changed how I felt about books’

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