Question: What is your favourite book?

Kathryn Boast answered on 4 Mar 2019:

Really tough question! I like so many books for different reasons. Can I give you a shortlist?

📕 The ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I love the fantasy in these books – they’re gripping and imaginative and beautifully written – and they stand the test of time.

📗 The ‘Anne of Green Gables’ series by L M Montgomery. Her adventures and friends and dreams always seemed so real and relatable. I still go back to these books when I need something comforting!

📘 Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. This was the book that made me think that maybe I could work in science but looking outwards – communicating science and making it easier to understand – because a lot rests on science being well-understood.

📙 Inferior by Angela Saini. This book is about how science has been unfair to women – women scientists have been overlooked, and there’s a lot of bad science that claims to show evidence for gender stereotypes in children. ‘Inferior’ opened my eyes to how much stereotyping there is, how unfair it is to women, and how – even now – we don’t really live in a society that treats men and women equally. It’s been a bit of a call to arms for a lot of women in science!

And if I had to take just one book with me to a desert island? Probably ‘Anne of the Island’, the third in the ‘Anne of Green Gables’ series – friendship, love, loss, adventure, study – and somewhere that is home.