Rose’s story Soup Kitchen was placed second in our inaugural Flash Fiction competition in November 2020. You can read it on our website here.

Rose is by no means a writer by trade, she tells us, but she is hoping that one day this will be true. In the meantime, she writes in the free days she has between freelance projects and hopes to publish her first YA fiction novel in the near future.

This is her pick of the top five books she must have on her shelf…

 

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

As a child I thoroughly believed all my toys had thoughts and feelings so a book about a toy that becomes real completely blew my mind. It’s a really heart breaking and lovely book and I don’t think it’s a story that will ever get old even when I do!

 

Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett

I love all of Ken Follett’s books but as this was the first of his I read it is the most memorable. His ability to create depth of character is incredible. I genuinely miss his characters when I finish reading. You could easily read this book over and over again.

 

How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

My dad recommended this to me and I have gone on to recommend it to many female friends. It helps women identify the things that society has conditioned us to do and believe that unknowingly set us back in our careers and put us at an unfair disadvantage. It changed the way I viewed work and what I deserve and I wish every woman could read it!

 

Information is Beautiful by David McCandless

You can’t really read this book, just stare at it. This book is filled with beautiful images of data visualisation. It is definitely more of a coffee table book but I love flipping open a page at random and trying to work out how on earth they managed to turn that data into something so fun to look at.

 

The Wind Singer by William Nicholson

This book is pure imagination and adventure. It made me fall in love with reading and writing as a child and I am always surprised that more people have not heard of it.