Books of my life by Elizabeth Nelson
In a special edition of ‘Books of my life’, we talk to Dr Elizabeth Nelson (MEd 2015, PhD 2021), Lecturer in Multimodal Literacies at the University. Libby has been named as a Scottish Book Trust National Reading Champion for 2026 in recognition of her work on the Reading With Children project at the University of Glasgow Nursery.
The book that was my favourite as a child
Growing up in Australia, I loved Mem Fox’s books: ‘Ten Little Fingers,’ ‘Possum Magic’. In my teenage years, I loved ‘Guitar Highway Rose’ by Brigid Lowry, which is about running away and living a life of adventure, and John Marsden’s ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’ series. I devoured these books, probably because they were set in a world that I recognised, but that offered extraordinary adventures within it.
The book I wish I’d written
‘The Lost Words’ by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris. It’s a picture book of poetry and illustration of the words for natural things (acorn, fern, otter) that were removed from the ‘Oxford Junior English Dictionary’ to make space for modern words more in circulation. It’s a beautiful, clever, thoughtful contribution to the world.
The book that makes me laugh the most
‘The Red House Mystery’ by AA Milne, who’s better known as the author of ‘Winnie the Pooh’. It’s a clever send-up of the cosy murder mystery genre, and it comes with a rather funny essay in which Milne explains which tropes of the genre he likes and which he can do without – he’s scathing about writers who include romance subplots in their mysteries.
"Every Christmas my husband buys me a cosy mystery novel – something by Agatha Christie or Margery Allingham or Josephine Tey – and reads it aloud while I do a jigsaw puzzle. So these books have a warm, festive feel for me.
The book that changed my mind
It’s hard to pinpoint one single book that’s altered my whole life. One example is the books of Bernardine Evaristo, such as ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, which changed my understanding of London, both ancient and modern. Now when I visit London, her books are etched into my perception of the city.
The book I recommend most often to others
Natalie Goldberg’s ‘Writing Down the Bones’ is a book that I find really helpful when a project is almost complete; a lot of the thinking work is done during the writing process itself, so I recommend this book to many at the final stages of their PhD or other large projects.
The book that's my guilty pleasure
No such thing! When we do our reading sessions, the kids first pick the books, then we introduce a curated picture book, then we do a craft activity. They often pick books based on TV shows like ‘Peppa Pig’ or ‘Bluey’. There is often a process of unlearning for many of our students that reading the less ‘literary’ works might be the best bit of the session for a young reader, a key part of reading for pleasure pedagogies. So I try to take those understandings with me into my own reading practice and just lean into the pleasure without the guilt.
The book I’m reading now
I’ve just started ‘Klara and the Sun’ by Kazuo Ishiguro. I found the narrator’s voice in ‘The Remains of the Day’ so funny and the novel so insightful, and I love Ishiguro’s lyrics for the album ‘The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain.’
This article was first published in October 2026.
