The journalist, newsreader and presenter of BBC Radio 4's "Today" chooses her six favourite books.
Her new memoir, "Broken Threads: My Family From Empire to Independence", is out now.
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott, 1868-1886
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Not so much the best-known first one, but the follow-ups, in which Jo sets up a school with her husband, and Alcott charts the lives of the boys who come there. I loved the entire quintet through my teenage years.
The Wandering Falcon
Jamil Ahmad, 2011
This can be seen as a novella or a series of linked short stories, but either way it's a poignant portrait of life in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are age-old customs, social mores and privations, as well as conflict with nation-state ideology. The "falcon" of the title is actually a little boy, struggling to survive.
The Past Is Myself
Christabel Bielenberg, 1968
I read this autobiography of a British woman's life in Nazi Germany after seeing "Christabel", the BBC series it inspired, in the 1980s. Written with simplicity, directness and humanity, it laid the ground for my own interest in history as reflected in family stories.
The Ordinary Princess
M.M. Kaye, 1980
A children's story about a princess whose fairy godmothers turn up at her christening, bestowing gifts such as wit. The final one, Crustacea, arrives in a bad mood and gives the baby ordinariness instead.
King Leopold's Ghost
Adam Hochschild, 1998
A horrifying, brilliantly told account of colonialism as a personal enterprise, describing the Belgian king's "acquisition" and brutal plunder of Congo.
Selected Poems
Louis MacNeice, 1944
This volume by the under-appreciated, Belfast-born MacNeice contains the lyrical "Autumn Journal", written in – and about – the autumn of 1938. It powerfully conjures up ordinary life in England amid the hovering threat of war.
-
China and Taiwan's war of words ahead of anniversary paradeUnder The Radar Neighbours both claim to have led the fighting during World War Two
-
Epstein files: Maxwell courts a pardonFeature A new prison transcript shows Ghislaine Maxwell praising Trump as 'a gentleman' while denying his involvement in the Epstein scandal
-
Pentagon readies military deployment in ChicagoFeature The Pentagon is preparing to deploy thousands of Illinois National Guard members to Chicago after Trump threatened to send troops into other major cities
-
6 products and apps to help fight jet lagThe Week Recommends Don't let travel fatigue drag you down
-
Woof! Britain's love affair with dogsThe Explainer The UK's canine population is booming. What does that mean for man's best friend?
-
8 hotels that show off the many facets of JapanThe Week Recommends Choose your own modern or traditional adventure
-
Millet: Life on the Land – an 'absorbing' exhibitionThe Week Recommends Free exhibition at the National Gallery showcases the French artist's moving paintings of rural life
-
Thomasina Miers picks her favourite booksThe Week Recommends The food writer shares works by Arundhati Roy, Claire Keegan and Charles Dickens
-
6 laid-back homes for surfersFeature Featuring a home near a world-renowned surf spot in Hawaii and a house built to withstand the elements in South Carolina
-
Say farewell to summer at these underrated US lakesThe Week Recommends Have one last blast
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboreeThe Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
