PETER LAURIE

How do you know which are your favourite books? If you are honest, they are books you read and reread and reread.

So my favourite books are Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Why? Not because they are the greatest novels; they aren’t. But because they are perfectly realized pieces of fiction.

On the other hand, I don’t have a favourite author, though James Joyce and Gabriel Garcia Marquez come close. A novel that has absolutely fascinated me ever since I first read it is Love in the Time of Cholera by Garcia Marquez. And the best short story ever written is Joyce’s “The Dead.”

Oh, and I loathe D.H. Lawrence.

• Peter Laurie, an author, newspaper columnist and former diplomat, was a storyteller for the Bim LitFest Children’s Fair 2014. He is the author of several books, including the Mauby the Cat series. His most recent publication is the Caribbean One-Pot Cook Book, co-authored with his son Chris.