Alice Roberts says Richard Dawkins and George Eliot shaped her reading life
The TV presenter and author has reflected on the books that guided her from childhood favourites to humanism, naming Richard Dawkins as a turning point and George Eliot as a late discovery. Her choices trace a path through science writing, literary classics and the stories she still shares with her children.
TV presenter and author Alice Roberts has named the books that have shaped her thinking, from early childhood reading with her grandmother to the scientific writing that helped move her away from Anglican faith. In a list of formative titles, she also singled out George Eliot’s Middlemarch as a revelation and Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad stories as a lasting family favourite.
Early reading and childhood favourites Roberts’ earliest reading memories go back to Sheila K McCullagh’s The Village with Three Corners series, which she remembered for its vividly named characters such as Johnny Yellow Hat. She said she was reading these books with her grandmother, probably in a garden on a small patio surrounded by flowers, a setting that suggests how closely reading and childhood memory remain linked for her.
The book she most loved while growing up was Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad. Roberts praised the stories for their humour and warmth, describing Toad as a character who repeatedly gets into trouble while Frog remains a steady, affectionate companion. She said she later read the books to her own children, and that they still return to them now and then, which she saw as proof of their simple humanism.