Monday

I don't know if anybody else has been enjoying the series My Life in Books on BBC2 at 630pm weekday evenings. Anne Robinson proved an unexpectedly informed and congenial host and the choices of books by the guests was always interesting. I think my favourite of the programmes I saw was the one with Sharon Glees and Robert Peston. A surprising pairing perhaps which created a real spark and warmth. And Sharon's performance of the Edna St Vincent Millay poem was wonderful.

I began to wonder how I would express my live in books. For my childhood, I think I would have to choose the Pippi Longstocking adventures by Astrid Lindgren (a strong, independent red-headed little girl, how could I resist?) And the perhaps rather less famous Jill and her pony books by Ruby Ferguson. I remember saving up my pocket money, so I could go an buy the next one in the nine book series.

Moving on through my life, I would have to choose Down Among the Women by Fay Weldon, the first feminist novel I ever read. Then maybe Writing as a Way of Healing by Louisa de Salvo. And what of Austen or TS Elliot's Prufrock? The choice is difficult to make.

The interviewees on My Life in Books could only have four, I have already gone beyond that, but I still need a volume of poetry. It would have to be an anthology, perhaps Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley or The Song Atlas by John Gallas.

Then again, tomorrow, I might make a completely different selection, only Pippi, I think would always remain.