Deborah Moggach

The popular and acclaimed author reveals the books currently topping her must-read list, which she commits to reading either in bed, or on the train, “as long as people aren’t on their beastly phones”. Hear hear Ms Moggach!


On Roads: A Hidden History by Joe Moran
“A very uncategorisable book...about roads, something we all take hugely for granted. How boring is that? But [Moran] spins a whole poetic sociological exploration of them by exploring the birth of motorways, motorway protests, weird people who live in Travel Lodges, people who are hooked on driving. The beauty of motorways. And it’s a sort of tone poem in tarmac...”
In this highly original slice of post-war history, Joe Moran explores how the British have built, mapped and driven the roads that we all use but rarely stop to think about. Focusing on the era after the birth of the M1 in 1959, he reveals how our simple road system evolved into a complex network that developed its own rules as if it were another country. He also uncovers the unexpected roots of this hidden world from Napoleon’s role in the numbering system to the surprising origins of sat-nav. Moran investigates our previously neglected relationship with the road through an unusual mixture of history, anthropology and social observation. There is much that can be learnt from our attitudes to speed cameras, the secret language of lorry-drivers, and even the ‘non-places’ where we rest by the side of the road. Celebrating along the way the innovators whose work we take for granted, such as the designers of our road signs and the first theorist of traffic jams, On Roads shows how the everyday can be as extraordinary as it is invisible. Written with wit, warmth and authority, it will change forever the way you look through your windscreen.


The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
“Edith Wharton is one of those writers who - because I’m a novelist myself -I reread because she sort of oils my brain. She limbers me up. Rereading her books, I learn a lot about how to slide in and out of peoples’ consciousnesses and it’s also a very, very wonderful book and it’s all about the birth of capitalism; that period in American history at the turn of the last century which I find very riveting.”
The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the rigidly conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingénue, when May's cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence. Her sorrowful eyes, her tragic worldliness and her air of inapproachability attract the sensitive Newland and, almost against their will, a passionate bond develops between them. But Archer's life has no place for passion and, with society on the side of May and all she stands for, he finds himself drawn into a bitter conflict between love and duty.


Me Cheeta: the Autobiography by James Lever
“This is a very quirky, funny, rather blissful novel which has been a huge word of mouth hit and is [ostensibly] the autobiography of the chimp who starred in the Tarzan movies. And it’s very, very funny but it’s very touching because it’s from the point of view of an animal who in a way is at the mercy of humans.”
The incredible, moving and hilarious story of Cheeta the Chimp, simian star of the big screen, on a behind-the-scenes romp through the golden years of Hollywood. The greatest Hollywood Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, died in 1984. Maureen O'Sullivan, his Jane, died in 1998. Weissmuller's son, who first played Boy in the 1939 film Tarzan Finds a Mate, has gone too. But Cheeta the Chimp, who starred with them all, is alive and well, retired in Palm Springs as an abstract painter. At the incredible age of seventy-six, he is by far the oldest living chimpanzee ever recorded. Now, in this extraordinary debut novel, James Lever uncovers the astonishing tale of Cheeta. Cheeta was just a baby when snatched from the Liberian jungle in 1932, by the great animal importer Henry Trefflich, who went on to supply NASA with its 'Monkeys for Space' programme. That same year, Cheeta appeared in Tarzan the Ape Man, and in 1934 Tarzan and His Mate, in which he famously stole the clothes from a naked O'Sullivan, dripping wet from an underwater swimming scene with Weissmuller. Full of humour, wit and emotion, James Lever's novel tells the truly unique tale of a monkey stolen from deepest Africa and forced to make a living among the fake jungles and outrageous stars of Hollywood's golden age. Cheeta's tinseltown journey extends beyond the screen, to his struggle with drink and addiction to cigars, his breakthrough with a radical new form of abstract painting, 'Apeism', his touching relationship with his retired nightclub-performing grandson Jeeta, now a considerable artist in his own right, his fondness for hamburgers and his battle in later life with diabetes, and, through thick and thin, carer Dan Westfall, his loving companion who has helped this magnificent monkey come to terms with his peculiar past. Funny, moving - and so searingly honest, you know it has to be fiction - Me Cheeta transports us back to a lost Hollywood. Cheeta is a real star, and this is the greatest celebrity non-memoir of recent times!