Lessons in Chemistry author Bonnie Garmus: ‘I wrote my first novel at 12 – it has not yet found a publisher’

The author of the global sensation on being inspired by Harper Lee, the craft of Joan Didion, and the joys of rereading Louisa May Alcott

My earliest reading memory I have a very clear memory of reading Fun With Dick and Jane. I was four years old, and my dad wrote each word on a chalkboard. I memorised them, then opened the book and read them back to him. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like magic! When I was older, I stumbled across the book and was surprised to find Dick and Jane didn’t really have all that much fun.

My favourite book growing up Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. Eleven-year-old Harriet Welch wants to be a writer, and her nanny encourages her to keepa notebook so she can practise writing every day. But when the other kids at school find her book (which is filled with her meanest, most vulnerable thoughts), she quickly becomes the school pariah. I must have read this story a hundred times. Harriet Welch was the reason I started writing stuff down. She was also the reason I understood that no matter how hard it feels, it is imperative to own and apologise for your mistakes.

The book that changed me as a teenager To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Scout’s voice grabbed me from the start. It was a deep dive into racism, poverty, hatred and social justice, and it had a direct impact on how I saw the world.

The writer who changed my mind Henry David Thoreau. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” he wrote in Walden, “to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” I was 18, loved the outdoors, craved adventure, and desperately wanted to see what I was made of. But it’s hard to get work from a mountaintop, so I settled for living deliberately in my tiny, overpriced, noisy, too-hot apartment. Survival comes in many forms.

The book that made me want to be a writer Fun With Dick and Jane! Seriously. I was in love with reading from the very beginning, and writing a story seemed like the obvious next step. At age five I wrote my first book. It was a page long and included an illustration. It has not yet been picked up by a publisher. I also wrote an entire novel by 12. For some reason, that, too, remains unsigned. All offers considered.

The book I came back to Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I was supposed to love it (I was nine; I fitted the demographic), but it didn’t speak to me. Fast forward 15 years. I was trekking in Nepal’s Annapurna range and found it on a hikers’ bookshelf. I reread it in my tent by candlelight. I couldn’t believe how great it was. Jo is amazing!

The book I reread The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. The writing is extraordinary, and the point of view is one of a kind. There isn’t a wasted word in the entire book. I also love to read essays and often return to The White Album by Joan Didion to study the way she crafts sentences. She has an amazing ability to capture the energy of an age, a movement, a fad, just as it begins to slide.

The book I could never read again The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. I loved this when I was a teenager and maybe I would love it again, but I don’t want to run the risk of spoiling my good memories.

The book I discovered later in life So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. It’s told from the point of view of a man in his 60s looking back on a childhood upended by murder and the loss of his mother. It’s a brilliant study of how impossible it is to make sense of our memories, because they have a bad habit of rewriting themselves.

The book I am currently reading May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry.