Favourite Reads with Amy I Beeson

Favourite books from Substack writers

Welcome to the edition of Favourite Reads. Today,

Amy I Beeson

from I Need to Finish This Before I Die by Amy Beeson shares her answers to my five questions—exploring the books that have inspired and stayed with her. If you enjoy this series, please let me know by leaving like, comment or subscribe for more conversations like this.

Let me introduce Amy, who kindly put her hand up to be the first in this series. As we know, being first is not easy.

Amy Beeson is a writer in West London. Her three books, which were published by HarperCollins, are The New Arrival, Our Country Nurse, Happy Baby, and Happy Family. She is Head of Storytelling at Wordsby Communications and co-founder of the non-profit The Story Pod. 

1. What’s the one book you could read over and over again, and why does it resonate with you so deeply?

Books have a unique way of becoming cherished companions that we revisit time and again. For me, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a book I have read repeatedly, just the thought of it is delicious. The other book is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

These two novels have my favourite openings of all time. They give a richly textured indication of the tone of these stories. I feel myself shift mentally and physically ready to be consumed by the character’s worlds. They have captured my imagination for decades and provided a comforting escape into familiar but exhilarating stories.

Rebecca’s famous opening line “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” instantly transports me to the mysterious and haunting rolling fog coming in from the sea. I can almost taste the sea salt, smell the rhododendrons, hear the crunch of gravel and I’m filled with such longing and foreboding. It’s a sensuous thriller.

Similarly, Pride and Prejudice’s iconic beginning that: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” sets up the domestic marriage market which are Austen’s preoccupation of her writing and her characters. At once we can see that romance will mainly give way to societal ambition, in this witty observation.

My 13-year-old daughter read Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë over the summer, making full use of my London Library membership. I asked her which was her favourite. She answered that Jane Eyre when she’s at Thornfield was thrilling but that Elizabeth Bennett once she goes to Pemberley becomes the ultimate romantic novel. When you add Manderley into the mix, perhaps it’s the houses as well as the heroines that have become a literary escape for generations of readers, myself and now my daughter included.

Books we read as young teenagers often leave a lasting impression, I feel I am marked by some books, branded for life, an incurable romantic. From a young age I devoured works by Austen, the Brontës, Mary Wollstonecraft and Christina Rosetti. However, I have a lifelong fondness for Alan Bennett and The Diaries of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. All these books were also my mum’s favourites too. I do think we pass down some of our literary loves along with an ability to swim like a fish, or an aptitude for playing piano.

2. Do you prefer specific genres, like fiction, memoirs, fantasy, or self-help? What draws you to those types of books?

My reading preferences are eclectic. I am a magpie. If I have a problem or want to conjure up an atmosphere or a state of mind I turn to books. When I was an undergraduate at UEA our creative writing course leader, the author Paul Magrs, encouraged us to go to the university library without agenda and read what took our fancy. 

Nowadays, I enjoy seasonal reading. I had some beautiful sun-soaked hours on a West Country beach with Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys’s prequel to Jane Eyre. Supernatural is often my book of choice in September and November, and at Christmas a love story for the festive season feels as essential as the mince pies for Santa and the carrot for Rudolph.

I read Dawn O’Porter’s Cat Lady and Jojo Moyes In Her Shoes on holiday last year and enjoyed them immensely. I read each book in four days, which as a working mum hardly ever happens. They were a highlight of my holiday. Audiobooks are a favourite, especially memoirs and self-help books, which if you listen to them whilst doing mundane household chores turn them into little pleasures

There are authors that stop you in your tracks and you make time for their books, not the other way round. In recent years I’ve adored Deborah Harkness’s All Souls series and when Sarah Waters publishes a new novel to me it feels of huge cultural significance.

3. What’s a book that felt like it was written just for you at a specific moment in your life?

 One book that holds a special place in my heart is Happy Baby, Happy Family by Sarah Beeson MBE. This book was written by my mum, and I edited it. It was the book that got us an agent and a book deal with HarperCollins. Its origins were emails filled with easy to follow and emotionally resonating advice from my mum to me when I was pregnant and in the early days of motherhood. So, it does feel like a love letter to me and new parents.

In the middle, Amy and her mom, at the rooftop launch party

4. What’s the most beautiful or memorable passage you’ve ever read in a book? Could you share it and why it stuck with you?

A book that has profoundly impacted me is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I’ve read it multiple times over the years and today when I looked at again, I was again blown away by Atwood’s skill and storytelling. I’ve always regretted not snapping up a ticket to see her when she came to Piccadilly Waterstones with The Testaments. If she comes to London with her soon to be published memoir, I’m going.

I have “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” (Don’t let the bastards grind you down) written on a magnetic post-it note on the wall of my office above my desk as a reminder of resilience. The Handmaid’s Tale was published forty years ago this year and yet it feels more poignant than ever.

“I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.”
“We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”
“When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.”

“What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, crisscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.”

“Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.
We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
“He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all. What an available temptation.”
“We lived in the gaps between the stories.” [Wow, that one is going up on the space above my desk right now].

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

5. If you could gift one book to everyone you know, what would it be, and what makes it special?

A gift to everyone would be The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I have another quote above my desk from this book, “I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality.” It helps you get a hold on the fear of writing, on the blocker that is perfectionism.

In May 2024 a friend sent me a link to an audiobook called Living The Artist’s Way, I’d never heard of it or Julia Cameron. My friend is a real highflyer, so I immediately downloaded it.

I bought it, and it sat on my bedside table unopened for three months. I wasn’t ready. When my four-year-old started school in September I then followed the 12-week programme until we broke up for the Christmas holidays. It was life changing. I bought it for my best friend from university for his birthday last month. He’s a talented writer who isn’t writing and desperately wants to. Like me it may sit on his bedside table for a few months, but I can’t wait for his new story to begin.

Books have the power to shape our lives, offering solace, inspiration, and a sense of connection. Whether it's a classic novel or a contemporary memoir, the stories we cherish become a part of who we are. I’d love to know if these are any of your favourites too?

I’m working on my next memoir and it’s terrifying. What I love about Substack is the community it has given us. I am a writer who loves talking about writing, it’s why I’ve started hosting Substack Meet Ups in West London and I have writing events coming up which are on my publication events page if anyone wants to come along.

My publication is called I Need To Finish This Before I Die…because there is a lot I want to do in this life... usually all at the same time. You'll find a mixture of memoir, audio readings, branding tips and book chat in my posts. I’m working away on a new book and podcast too, and I’m going to ask about your reading and writing habits, if you care to share, so I hope soon, Jana, we’ll be having more bookish conversations.

Thank you so much,

Amy I Beeson

Thank you for sharing your favourite reads with us. I would be happy to be on your podcast, and my answer is 100% yes! I love bookish conversations.

Before you go, can you recall a book that completely shifted your perspective or changed how you see the world? What was it?

As always, thank you for reading! If you enjoy this series, please let me know by leaving like, comment or subscribe for more conversations like this.