Editor-in-chief of The Lady, judge of the inaugural Hatchet Job of the Year Award, author of Shire Hell and a keen skier, Rachel Johnson is this week’s Shelf Lifer. She has eminently sensible suggestions for the English curriculum, reveals the guilty literary secrets of the Johnson dynasty and tells us about the downside of having a famous brother.
1) What are you reading at the moment?
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, Frances Osborne’s Park Lane, just finished Philip Gould’s When I Die. Off the record – Fifty Shades of Grey.
2) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
Enid Blyton. My parents wouldn’t let me read it which was hypocritical of them as when I stole bootleg copies from my Grandparents’ house on Exmoor, they all had my father’s name in them. Even the Malory Towers and St Clares series.
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