What's on my bedside table: Steven Pinker

“A lot of my reading consists of newspapers, magazines and the internet, but when I really start to devour books is when I’m writing a book of my own. In researching a book, I will devour other people’s books morning, noon and night.

Forbidden Words by Keith Allan and Kate Burridge

This is by two Australian linguists who followed up their wonderful book, Euphemism and Dysphemism with a new book called Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. If you’re ever curious about why we swear; where swear words come from historically; how to swear in different languages, then the answers are here.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

I picked this up after being invited to share the stage with Ian McEwan at the Cheltenham Book Festival. The plot is driven by a newlywed couple who find it painfully difficult to talk about sex. The topic of openly exploring relationships is one I look at in my own book and is one I’m particularly looking forward to exploring with Ian on stage.

Overture by Yael Goldstein

A first novel, not yet published in the UK, this is about a mother-daughter pair, both of whom are brilliant classical music performers. It explores the mother’s conflict between her career and parenting, and daughter’s conflict between going into a career and staying in the shadow of her famous mother.

Strange Attractions by Rebecca Goldstein

I must confess that Overtures is partly a family matter as Yael is my step-daughter. I live with her mother, who is also a novelist, who has written seven books. Embarrassingly, there is one I haven’t read, which is this one I’m reading now, so that I can complete her oeuvre.”