Miriam Toews: 5 books that changed my life

Miriam Toewsis the the acclaimed author of books likeA Complicated KindnessandAll My Puny Sorrows. She is an exquisite writer with, as it turns out, exquisite taste in books. We asked the2016 Writers' Trust fellowto tell us about the books that have shaped her life and she responded with five: "I've selected these books because they all came to me, like gifts, surprisingly, when I needed them."

• The great Canadian reading list: 150 books to read for Canada 150

Harriet the Spyby LouiseFitzhugh

"Harrietwas the first cool female protagonist I'd ever encountered. A sad but feisty loner who wanted to be a writer, who spied on people and took notes, and had to apologize for hurting people's feelings appealed to the embryonic writer inside of me."

• Miriam Toews, Giller finalist, reads from All My Puny Sorrows

Lives of Girls and Womenby AliceMunro

"I snuck into my sister's bedroom, after she had left for university, and readLives of Girls and Womenby Alice Munro. It made me feel close to my sister, and it made me feel strong. I was 12."

• The lives of women, readers and Alice Munro

The Grapes of Wrathby John Steinbeck

"The scene where Rose O'Sharon breastfeeds the starving old man after losing her baby: such compassion and kindness. So horrifying, I had never read something so intimate, so beautiful, so many things at once. I became aware of what was possible with words."

• Shelagh Rogers in conversation with Miriam Toews, Alison Pickand Angie Abdou

Reading WritingbyJulienGracq

"The hardest time of my life... deeply depressed, despairing,Reading Writingreminded me, in beautiful language, of what I do and why I do it. This book said to me, get up and do your thing."

• 2007: Acclaimed French writer Julien Gracq dies

Secondhand TimebySvetlanaAlexievich

"This bookis about post-Soviet life... long monologues of ordinary people speaking so eloquently and passionately about love and war and terror and family. Russians talking about their souls."

• 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature won by Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich