The acclaimed novelist on the book that's the best she's ever read...
Acclaimed novelist Joanna Trollope reveals the book that she would most like to have written is The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay.
“Macaulay is a woman who no-one is reading at the moment. I wish I’d written it because it’s the most polymathic novel I have ever read. It is basically a love story, but it’s also a travelogue; it’s incredibly funny; it’s very moving; it’s very serious; it includes a great deal of political and sociological polemic: it’s the most varied, comprehensive patchwork of a novel. There’s a wonderful scene in it where the heroine tries to teach an ape how to drive an Austin even. It’s an absolute tour de force and it’s an irresistible read.”