My earliest reading memory
The first books I remember were from The Village with Three Corners series Sheila K McCullagh. I loved the – literally – colourful characters, like Johnny Yellow Hat. I was reading with my Grandma, in her garden perhaps, sitting on a small patio, surrounded by bright begonias and busy lizzies.
My favourite book growing up
Arnold Lobel’s wonderful Frog and Toad stories. Toad would get himself tied up in knots, trying to find a button or fly a kite, but Frog was always there – a constant, caring and funny friend. I enjoyed reading these stories to my own children when they were young, and we still sometimes go back and revisit them. They’re so full of humour, heart and simple humanism.
The book that changed me as a teenager
At that time I loved Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and Rosemary Sutcliff. But the book I remember having a really profound effect on me was Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene. I was passionate about biology, and the gene’s-eye view turned it upside down and suddenly evolution made sense. I went on to voraciously read all of Stephen Jay Gould’s essays on evolutionary biology. Those two authors really inspired me.
The writer who changed my mind
When I picked up Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker, I was already beginning to seriously doubt the Anglican faith I’d been brought up in. By the time I finished it, I knew I’d left that faith behind. Biological diversity could be entirely explained through natural processes; there was no need for – and no evidence of – a divine creator. I became a humanist, although I didn’t know the word for it back then.
The book that made me want to be a writer
I never set out to be a writer. I wrote my first book as a handout to go with the first television series I wrote and presented on my own – Don’t Die Young on BBC Two. As a university academic, I wanted there to be something more to go with the programmes. I’d written papers of course, but nothing for a general readership, and I loved doing that. In my writing, whether that’s books or scripts for television and live shows, I always go back to Gould’s advice and example. He was adamant that it was possible to communicate complex ideas without “dumbing down” – you just need enough steps, and to strip away unnecessary jargon.
The book I came back to
One I keep coming back to – and this isn’t surprising for any biologist – is Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection. It’s so full of wonderful details and insights – and I love the way he takes his readers on a journey, from the known and familiar, to the novel and strange.
The book I discovered later in life
George Eliot’s Middlemarch – I only really sat down to read it five years ago. I never got on with the Brontë sisters or Jane Austen at school, and in my head, I’d put Eliot away on the same shelf labelled “novels that were boring and banal but got away with it because they were early examples of the genre and so there wasn’t much competition”! It was Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, who finally persuaded me to read Middlemarch and I was blown away by it – the complexity of the characters and the way it challenges your prejudices. It is a masterpiece.
The book I am currently reading
For work I’m dipping into Fritz Graf’s Roman Festivals in the Greek East and Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price’s two volume series on the Religions of Rome. For pleasure, I have recently finished Val McDermid’s fabulous Queen Macbeth, and Karen Hao’s fascinating and troubling Empire of AI. I’m also listening to Otto English’s brilliant Notorious audiobook. And I am enjoying reading Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem to my teenage son – who still enjoys a bedtime story!
My comfort read
The Little Book of Humanism – a book I helped to compile, full of wonderful, everyday humanist wisdom.
• The Goddess Queen by Alice Roberts is published on 1 September by Gallery UK. To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
