Shelfies #45: Rachel Knightley

Books have to be ‘in order’ – but it isn’t necessarily an order anyone but me would recognise. It’s important to know where the books I love are; that if I need to complete a thought or cite a quote that I can find the ingredient that contributed to it, can go to my emotional and intellectual spice rack and find what I’m looking for.

There’s a Holy of Holies shelf for each stack in the living room: on this one you can see a few of my Discworld, Holmes, Cadfael and Chronicles of Narnia paperbacks nesting around the glass head that’s wearing one of my (arguably too many) hats. Then there are the key short story collections (including memoirs, short story cycles &c) that own the shelf below: Audrey Niffenegger’s Bizarre Romance, Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am, Robert Shearman’s We All Hear Stories in the Dark, John Lanchester’s Reality and Other Stories, Tom Cox’s Help The Witch. I put my short story cycle Twisted Branches there too, because all of these favourites are reminders our goal as writers is to be fully curious, fully present, fully strange. Welcome the whole of ourselves to the party. To keep exploring further. 

Speaking of favourites, you might also spot one of my favourite novellas hiding behind my icing Blackstar (a Bowie reference from my 40^th birthday cake): The Big Blind by Lavie Tidhar. I don’t use the word ‘perfect’ lightly, but I would here. What perfect means to me is something entirely itself. Nothing wasted or excessive or apologetic. Simply embodies itself.

Beneath all those are a few of the key reference books and coaching texts that are, categorically, as much part of my developing the characters I create as the ones I support in the real world. We’re all becoming ourselves, all wanting to change for the better, all resisting that change along the way. Nancy Kline’s Time to Think, Philippa Perry’s Couch Fiction and Jenny Rogers’ Are You Listening? all provide coaching support and information through fictionalised stories about how we develop as characters within the coaching relationship. That’s probably why it makes sense to me not to separate fiction and non-fiction on my shelves. It sort of misses the point. We’re all just people, trying to be truer versions of ourselves. 

This bookshelf is the one behind my desk, so it’s the most actively used. During the day, the living room is my lair, cave, den – and it doesn’t bother me that in the evening it isn’t. I like that it forces me to be tidier than I might otherwise be, to file notes safely and to return to a clean page of a room for the new day. If you look closely (but please don’t) there will be various notebooks, pencil cases and make-up elements which are also important parts of the process of the day. Pushing my actual desk to the side of the room, or folding it down when it becomes a social or rehearsal space, means the shelves behind it are my desk more than my desk is. A balance of messy, accessible and ordered. Reassuringly human.

Dr Rachel Knightley is the author of fiction and non-fiction including Beyond Glass, Twisted Branches and Your Creative Writing Toolkit. Her short stories have won Writers’ Forum’s First Prize for Fiction (Wolf in the Mirror), the London Writers ‘Promis’ Prize (The Existence of Tim) and been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award for best anthology (Dreamland, edited by Sophie Essex). She coaches Fiction and Memoir Writing at Riverside Studios and creative confidence for writing and life at Olympic Studios, the Century Club, in London and online. Rachel is the founder and presenter of The Writers’ Gym membership platform and podcast.

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. For more Shelfies, please join us on Instagram at @shelfiesplease.