Alistair Petrie and Alex Wheatle

Actor Alistair Petrie, from TV series Sex Education, found Joan Didion's meditation on grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, unexpectedly uplifting. Writer Alex Wheatle, subject of one of Steve McQueen's Small Axe films, found Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island a means of escape from the horrors of his childhood, and presenter Harriett Gilbert enjoyed Men Don't Cry, by Faiza Guene. Producer Sally Heaven