Angela Atkins

Angela Atkins is an author and creative writing facilitator originally from the UK, but who grew up in New Zealand, and now lives in Seville, Bordeaux and the UK. She has written several non-fiction books. Management Bites, published by HarperCollins NZ was a bestseller, and she has followed it with several other bites book. Her debut novel, Britpop Summer, was published in 2024. She is also the founder of Sevilla Writers’ Group and has edited Now That’s What I Call Writing, an anthology of short stories and poetry by writers living in Seville.

Who was the first writer you ever got into?

As a child I read a lot of Enid Blyton, then as a teen it was Stephen King. As an adult I think it was Banana Yoshimoto that made me suddenly realise literature was a whole new ballpark than anything I’d read before.

What book have you reread more than any other?

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It’s my favourite book of all time because every time I read it, it completely changes. Some books change a little (obviously it’s you that changes as you grow older!) but with The Secret History I’ve had such different reactions to it the five times I’ve read it (first time aged 19) that I look forward to seeing what I take from it the next time (and it’s been about 7 years since the last time, so might be time again).

What’s the strangest book you’ve ever loved?

Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here is about a  woman who gets contacted by a friend from college, asking if she’ll come and look after her children – who keep on bursting into flames! My husband and I love this book. We call it the Fire Children. I’ve recommended it to so many people, and everyone is the same when they read it. ‘What the hell was that?’ Kevin Wilson writes such kooky, weird stuff (in a good way), he’s a brilliant escape from the world today.

Who is your favourite contemporary writer?

I actually wrote a blog on my website about my top 10 authors, all of which are contemporary. I can’t pick just one... It was hard enough whittling it down to 10!!

‍What’s your favourite film adaptation of a book?

The Time Travelers Wife. I didn’t watch for a long time as I loved the book, but then accidentally came upon the 2009 film and they did such a wonderful job with it. Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams were Henry and Claire completely. I also thought the film version of Atonement (book by Ian McEwan) was beautiful and the one change they made to the ending worked so well.

I’ve completed avoided ever watching the trailer or any of The Vitner’s Luck. I love the book (by Elizabeth Knox) about an angel who comes down and meets Sobran, whose family owns a vineyard in 1800’s France. Xas the angel lives in my head, and I don’t ever want to see anyone human try to play him.

What’s the best non-fiction book you’ve ever read?

Without doubt, Sarah Bakewell – How to Live. It’s about the essays of Montaigne, a philosopher and writer from the 1500’s, who wrote a series of essays exploring life. Sarah Bakewell takes these and puts a modern lense on them, and also on French history around Montaigne’s time. I read this one Christmas, sitting by a roaring fire, and it was brilliant.

‍Tell us about a book that didn’t live up to the hype.

Butter – Asako Yuzuki. I was so excited to read this but really didn’t like it at all. I’ve since found that it’s one of those books people either love or hate, like A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I love that book, but some people say they just can’t get into it.

Do you have a favourite poem?

I’m not big on poetry but Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night is a favourite. The line “rage, rage against the dying of the light” is beautiful and feels very relevant at the moment. As a Gen Xer I’m raging against what the world has become. Many things that were beautiful are being killed by AI and people being moronic.   

What are you reading right now?

For non-fiction, I’m reading a book about William Blake at the moment as I didn’t know anything about him (except for the song Jerusalem). He was a very strange man and the book is brilliant as it’s about some very weird aspects of Victorian England, and psychology and spirituality.

I’m also reading my friend Ari Honovar’s novel A Girl Called Rumi about an American Iranian counsellor who begins to remember her childhood in Iran after seeing a strange bird in her mother’s garage in California and then goes back to Iran with her mother. It’s beautiful and fascinating.