Killer Reads from KILLING KATIE: Jane FitzGerald

16 Aug 2021

Looking for the perfect story to get you through the throes of lockdown living? The team from KILLING KATIE: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK CLUB are opening the book on their favourite tales and giving you their very own killer reading recommendations. Dramaturg Jane FitzGerald takes the mic!


What’s your favourite book or author and why?

This is a very hard question, but I probably have to go with ‘Emma’ (or ‘Persuasion’? Agh!) by Jane Austen. I was named after Jane Austen (and my second name is Emma), so I feel like her books have been lifelong companions. I love the careful attention Austen pays to her characters and their lives, and the wonderfully detailed, funny and compassionate way she writes. I find I really have to slow down when I read her, and I appreciate that. We also named our daughter Emma!

What makes for a good story or book?

I love novels that explore big ideas and ask interesting questions. I also love books that look close up at the way we live our lives as humans, that observe our interactions and inner workings.

If your life was a book, what would the title be?

‘Now, Where Did I Put My Glasses?’

Do you have any reading rituals? 

During lockdown, I’ve been trying to make sure I differentiate between weekdays and weekends. So my weekend morning treat – one I’m pretty strict about! – is to make a pot of tea, go outside to a square of sun, sit in my favourite chair and read for a bit. Bliss.

What are you reading at the moment?

‘Bring Up the Bodies’ by Hilary Mantel (the second in the ‘Wolf Hall’ series about Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII). I love it – you get so drawn into the world.


KILLING KATIE: CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK CLUB has been rescheduled to Wed 12 Jan – Sat 19 Feb 2022.

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