Novelist Jacqueline Crooks has discussed the books and authors that have influenced her throughout her life, from her earliest reading memories to her current interests. At eight years old, she was given Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, a story she found resonated with her experience of adapting to a new world.
Charles Dickens's David Copperfield was a favourite growing up, teaching her empathy and about relationships. Later, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, read as a teenager, shaped her writing by demonstrating how landscape can function as a character.
Crooks credits Toni Morrison with inspiring her to become a writer, noting that Morrison's work showed her that Black lives and characters from marginalised worlds are worthy of being centred in literature. She also mentioned returning to Wilson Harris's writing in her 40s, which helped her value her cultural inheritance and bring Jamaican landscapes into her work.
Currently, Crooks is reading Andy Beta's Cosmic Music: The Life, Art and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane, whose music has influenced her new novel, Sky City. She finds comfort in Walter Mosley's Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, appreciating its themes of kindness, dignity, and transformation.