Our host Vick Hope is joined by author Kit de Waal.
Kit de Waal has written novels for adults and young adults, short stories and her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in 2022. Her debut novel My Name is Leon was an international bestseller; in 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC and it is now on the GCSE curriculum. She is founder of the TV production company Portopia Productions and The Big Book Weekend, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds many roles in book and arts organisations. She is Chair of Judges for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Her new novel The Best of Everything, a story about the meaning of kindness and the love that can alter one’s life, is published this week.
Listen to the full episode here and read on to discover Kit’s five most influential books by women.
I read this book when I was in my 40s and I loved it. I thought what a great story about this woman who discovers her husband’s having an affair and how it devastates her and how she recovers. And it’s a long and painful road, but it’s ultimately quite a joyous book. And fast forward, I’m 55 and I discover my husband’s having an affair and I’m devastated – and literally, within days of finding out I was like “where is that goddamn book?”. I (re)read it with much more knowledge, understanding, appreciation and hope.
This could not be more different to my own experience of life. I am the least country-minded and wildlife-minded person in the world – but I loved this. The rawness and the honesty of what [Amy] was going through and there’s something about her brokenness when she embarks on this journey of discovery. She writes so beautifully. I mean it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever wanted to go bird-watching (!). She makes it sound both exciting yet peaceful, both restorative yet expansive.
The fact that [Abi] came through this with such resilience and humour is such a tribute to her strength. It’s a wonderful, wonderful book and beautifully written and again, so honest. She does not hold back.
The phrase “every light in the house burnin” – my dad would have said that every single day and it just means “turn the lights off, the electricity bill!” […] So when I saw the title of this book many years ago, I was like I have to read that because I know who said it […] And I loved the fact that Andrea had written about an experience that I had lived, that my dad had lived.
I am an audiobook freak, I absolutely adore audiobooks. And this is one of the first books I listened to on audiobook that contributed to my insomnia, because I could not turn it off. […] You’ve got this man Old Filth who is not very nice – and the further in you go, you see the damaged boy who was sent to boarding school, you see why he wants to succeed, you see his brokenness underneath it all. It’s so cleverly done.
