Other Favourites
In 1999, while Rowling was on a tour of the United States, a bookseller handed her a copy of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, saying she would love it. The book became one of her all time favourites. Rowling says that, "it is the voice of the narrator, in this case 17-year- old Cassandra Mortmain, which makes a masterpiece out of an old plot."
Also in 1999, Rowling said in interview that she was a great fan of Grimble, by Clement Freud, saying, "Grimble is one of funniest books I've ever read, and Grimble himself, who is a small boy, is a fabulous character. I'd love to see a Grimble film. As far as I know, these last two fine pieces of literature are out of print, so if any publishers ever read this, could you please dust them off and put them back in print so other people can read them?"
On a number of occasions, Rowling has cited her admiration for French novelist Colette.
Rowling said that the death of Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, and the novel's final line, "It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known", had a profound impact on her.
In a 2000 interview with BBC Radio 4, Rowling revealed a deep love of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial book Lolita, saying, "There just isn't enough time to discuss how a plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabokov's hands, a great and tragic love story, and I could exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality of the writing."
In an interview with O: The Oprah Magazine, Rowling described Irish author Roddy Doyle as her favourite living writer, saying, "I love all his books. I often talk about him and Jane Austen in the same breath. I think people are slightly mystified by that because superficially they're such different writers. But they both have a very unsentimental approach to human nature. They can be profoundly moving without ever becoming mawkish."
Many of Rowling's named favorites decorate the links section of her personal webpage. The section is designed to look like a bookcase, and includes I Capture the Castle, The Little White Horse and Manxmouse, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, a book of fairy tales by E. Nesbit, The Commitments and The Van by Roddy Doyle, two books by Dorothy L. Sayers and a book by Katherine Mansfield.
In January 2006, Rowling was asked by the Royal Society of Literature to nominate her top ten books every child should read. Included in her list were Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
Read more about this topic: Harry Potter Influences And Analogues