THE ILIAD by Homer (translated by Robert Fagles) Penguin, £9.99 My desert island book. I first read it in ancient Greek at 15 with a boy I was in love with. It collapses time across 2,000-3,000 years, describing men and women in Asia Minor who dressed in animal pelts yet had ideas and dreams the same as ours.
THE WHITE CASTLE by Orhan Pamuk Faber, £8.99 This came out after I first travelled to Istanbul at 18 and was enraptured by the city. He writes about the intrigues of Ottoman life. It made me fall in love with their culture even more.
MADAME BOVARY by Gustave Flaubert Penguin, £8.99 I’ve never lived the life of an intelligent young woman who has affairs but I completely empathise with Madame Bovary. This was ahead of its time and it delivers brilliantly on the power of our internal lives.
THE SONGLINES by Bruce Chatwin Vintage, £9.99 I was born with wanderlust and I’m never happier than when I’m on the road writing and researching. Chatwin was clearly of the same ilk. This traces Australian Aboriginal culture and drives home the power of nomadic life.
THE AMAZONS by Adrienne Mayor Princeton, £14.95 A comprehensive guide to the myth and reality of Amazon women. Mayor is a very accessible author but backs it up with acute scholarship. Ferocious warrior women really did exist in the Caucasus area and she reminds us that truth can be stranger than fiction.
THE SPARTANS by Paul Cartledge Pan, £10.99 The Spartans are one of the reasons that I became a historian. They were brutal but they were trying to make the exceptional happen and I admire their spirit. The women were unusual in the ancient world in that they had political rights.
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