Top 10 life-affirming reads

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, the Guardian reports. 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."

For full version go to