International Women’s Day 2012

In honour of International Women’s Day we asked some of our authors to tell us their favourite book written by a woman:


Anna Krien, author of Into the Woods and Quarterly Essay 45 Us and Them:

Marilynne Robinson's debut novel Housekeeping is, essentially, the opposite of housekeeping. Fog and dust seem to emanate from its pages, and the image of a train moving like an eel to its final resting place in a lake on a moonless night has never left me. A story of women who cannot conform to society's expectations, not because of any radical rebellion, but because their veins and bones and thoughts are so very different to the ladies in the magazines.

Q&A with Rachel Robertson

We interview Rachel Robertson about her first book Reaching One Thousand: A story of love, motherhood and autism.

Can you tell us a little about your memoir Reaching One Thousand?

Reaching One Thousand is a story about an unusual boy, his mother, our everyday life and how I learned to be a parent. My son, Ben, is autistic and so the book is about difference, about learning about autism, and about change. For example, at four years old Ben loved numbers and all he wanted to do was walk around the local streets reading the numbers on the letterboxes. I expected him to play with toys and other kids, to want to do all the things I saw typically developing children do. But he had his own ideas! So the story is about me confronting my own expectations, adapting and rethinking my role as a parent. Some of that was hard, some was fun and most of it interesting, and that’s the story I tell in Reaching One Thousand.