The book I am currently reading Motherwell by Deborah Orr. The book that changed my life Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which I read when I was 15, was the patient zero of my passion for very dark, very funny novels. It wasn’t till a recent reread that I realised how radically it was structured. The book I wish I’d written A High Wind in Jamaica, written by Richard Hughes in 1929, must be the darkest, most hilarious book ever written – about a bunch of abducted children who casually destroy the lives of their hapless captors. Englishmen of a certain age think it’s a jolly adventure lark about pirates, but it’s not. I wouldn’t let a 14-year-old near it. The book that had the greatest influence on my writing I studied Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2 and Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence at school and adored them both. My attraction to coming-of-age stories is a lifelong passion I only recognised in retrospect. The book I think is most underrated No matter how many honours Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy accumulates, it’s not nearly enough. The book that changed my mind I read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in my 20s, and while I already suspected that a life solely comprised of marriage, babies and housework drove intelligent women to despair, it was nice to have it confirmed. The last book that made me cry Thomas Cromwell’s arrest and execution in The Mirror & the Light affected me more than the deaths of members of my own family. The last book that made me laugh The Murdstone Trilogy, Mal Peet’s final novel, is a fitting epitaph to his late-blooming career and tragic early death. Mordant, riotous and gorgeously written, Peet spoofs writers, agents, pretty much everyone in Devon, and of course himself. The book I couldn’t finish A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Its voyeuristic, near-pornographic take on self-harm and child abuse made me feel morally corrupted. The book I’m ashamed not to have read The night before my Victorian novel final exam in 1977, I stared at a stack of books (including Bleak House, Middlemarch and Vanity Fair) and wondered how I would sit an exam without having read them. I did surprisingly well. The book I give as a gift Golden Hill by Francis Spufford is a gloriously odd visit to New Amsterdam in 1746 and as perfectly structured a novel as I have ever read. People who come to my house usually go home with a copy whether they want one or not. The book I’d most like to be remembered for I’d quite like to be remembered for The Good Soldier. Who wouldn’t? My earliest reading memory My mother read us oodles of Dr Seuss. The Cat in the Hat is my anarchist hero to this day. My comfort read Having discovered Elizabeth Jane Howard far too late in life, I wandered through the five Cazalet novels in a trance of bliss. I moved on to The Long View, which is one of my favourite novels ever, though not at all comforting. • The Great Godden by Rosoff is published by Bloomsbury (£7.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.