Audrey Penn's Top Book Recommendations

Audrey PennThe Red Dory. It’s about a young boy who spends the summer with his grandfather, who is a professional fisherman. The boy is about 10 years old and I was about 10 when I was reading it, and an avid fisherman. We used to go out to Annapolis and down to Carolina and fish. I got to go deep-sea fishing with my uncle ­– that is what he did for a living. (Source)

Audrey PennMy favourite book of all when I was growing up was Pollyanna. Pollyanna was the daughter of a missionary – she had only one parent, her dad. She was very poor and she used to get things out of a missionary barrel. She wanted a doll but instead she got a pair of crutches and she started to cry. Her father said, “Let’s play a glad game”. She said, “There’s nothing glad about crutches”. He said,... (Source)

John SutherlandThere is an interesting debate … that the real heroine of Jane Eyre is not the plain little governess but the mad woman in the attic, Bertha Mason (Source)

Tracy ChevalierThe idea of marriage is that two people are going to become one, but here you know—because of the mad woman in the attic—that it’s one thing about to be split in two. (Source)

Audrey PennMy next one is Jane Eyre. She was orphaned and sent to a very rich aunt, who had her own very selfish children. Jane Eyre was not the perfect child and she was sent to live in a girls’ school. She made one friend, but unfortunately the little girl died, so she had to toughen up. She grew up there and learned everything she needed to know about teaching. She was a very good artist, she played a... (Source)

Audrey PennI have to go with Black Beauty. It’s very tough for me to read, because of the cruelty. I can’t stand cruelty. I don’t understand it, I will never understand it. Never in a million years. But if you want to take my illness and you want to equate it with anything, you can equate it with Black Beauty. (Source)

Mary KingAs a horsey young girl, it was a wonderful book to have read to you. It was written in 1877, in the first person – ground-breaking at the time. (Source)

Audrey PennI’m going to go with Oliver Twist. I was raised on all of these books, but I loved Oliver Twist. I have always believed that people, no matter how bad they are, when they see a really good kid in trouble, they’re going to help. (Source)

Chigozie ObiomaOne day he had this radical idea that, if you want something, you can actually make a demand on life. (Source)

Ann WiddecombeOliver is a boy who has escaped the workhouse and is adopted by a family of pickpockets. He’s the exception – because he’s being manipulated by the grownups… (Source)