My love affair with historical novels probably began with Sunday afternoons spent closeted in my Gran’s front-room with her excellent collection of Georgette Heyer novels - which I have since inherited!

I also loved the old swashbucklers of Rafael Sabatini and Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel.

Later , I got into Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt, Nigel Tranter, Margaret Irwin, Mary Stewart and, most of all, Dorothy Dunnett.

Among the historical classics, my early favourites were The Count of Monte Christo, Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. And later on: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Elliott.

Among my recently discovered favourites are Elizabeth Chadwick, Roberta Gellis and Lyndsay Davis

And my favourite books of all time? (So far...!)

• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - The archetypal historical novel, it has everything: "real" and imaginary characters beautifully drawn, stirring historical events, romance, tragedy, philosophy and adventure.

• The Stranger Prince by Margaret Irwin - The life and times of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, brought vividly and movingly alive.

• The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas - A great story of adventure, revenge and romance to capture the imagination.

• Middlemarch by George Elliott - Full of wonderful characters, it brings the small Victorian town - and the lot of Victorian women - to life.

• Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg - This is a fine thriller and Smilla is a great character, strong and independent enough to overcome both her own vulnerabilities and the weaknesses of others.

• Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith - Another excellent thriller, set in Communist Russia, with a compassionate, very Russian hero solving an unusual and grizzly murder.

• Dracula by Bram Stoker - The mother and father of vampire stories, it's always worth going back to...

• The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West - A wonderful evocation of a girl growing to womanhood in a changing world just before the Russian revolution.

• King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett - The story of the historical Macbeth, based on the daring supposition that he and the Viking Earl Thorfinn the Mighty were the same man - beautifully written, witty and clever, with lashings of adventure, romance and tragedy.

• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - A hilarious send-up of the conduct of war, though sometimes grotesque and sometimes moving, this is one of the funniest books ever written.

• Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres - A wonderful and maddening book about a great love and a lifetime "wasted", set during and after the Second World War, told with great compassion and humour.

• One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre - I couldn't put it down and I couldn't stop laughing!