Author Lucy Caldwell reflects on the books that have shaped her life and writing, from childhood folktales to modern literary classics. She highlights James Joyce’s *Ulysses* as an exhilarating reread and recommends Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s *Women Who Run With the Wolves* to women, while describing how her responses to books have changed with age and experience.

Caldwell recalls listening repeatedly to a Japanese folktale at age two, loving Susan Cooper’s *The Dark Is Rising* series from age 10, and wanting to become a writer after reading Jennifer Johnston at 13. She says she only appreciated DH Lawrence’s *Lady Chatterley’s Lover* in her forties, is currently considering Courttia Newland’s essay collection after Helen Bain’s Sylvia Plath novel, and returns for comfort to Lorrie Moore’s *Self-Help*.