My selection of eight books for the traditional desert island, which I called Lindsay's Canon, scored high on the dwem index – dead white European males – and I gave myself the challenge of finding a more diverse group of eight writers I’d genuinely be happy to be marooned with.
The original group consisted of Borges, Homer, T S Eliot, Jane Austen, Kipling, Donne, Le Carre and Anthony Powell, which scores a massive 28 on the index (one point for each characteristic, with a maximum score for all eight books of 32). Only Le Carre is alive, only Austen is female, and only Borges is non-European (and that’s only just true) and not white. I felt I had to consider Eliot an European through his own choice to work and write in England. While not accepting for a moment any intrinsic virtue for a writer in being female, non-white, non-European or even (only qua writer) alive, I thought I’d try and do better. Bearing in mind that I had to have read and enjoyed them – not just heard of them – and that they should stand much re-reading, this is what I came up with:

· Robertson Davies The Deptford Trilogy: Davies is a fine, slightly old fashioned novelist who I much enjoy. He has a habit of writing trilogies, in which three novels are closely connected and mutually enriching, rather than being essential sequences to each other. The first novel of this trilogy, Fifth Business, is particularly fine – and I recently also enjoyed Tempest-Tost, the first novel of the Salterton Trilogy.
· Margery Allingham Sweet Danger: Perhaps the finest writer of the great era of crime writing; Sayers can be as good but is affected and her hero is too perfect for words; Ngaio Marsh is funny and clever, but looks very period and patronising now; and Agatha Christie couldn’t write. But Allingham has a delicate touch, a wonderful eye for character and place, almost Dickensian in its intensity and vigour – and her heroes are very engaging. She describes the police – who are effective and central in many of her books, not bumbling amateurs as so often in this period – much more realistically than any of the others. And she tells a super story - this is one, Tiger in the Smoke is another.
· Mary Wesley The Vacillations of Poppy Carew: A very funny writer who is a constant inspiration to me – she is one of the few writers left who started writing at an age greater than I have so far reached!! I feel that many consider this fiction for a female audience, a kind of very superior chick lit, but I think her perceptiveness, her joie de vivre and her lovely style make it better than that.
· Orhan Pamuk My Name is Red: This is a fantastic novel, but I have found other writing by Pamuk, notably Snow, very heavy going. He writes wonderfully, with great intensity, and is unafraid to tackle very difficult and politically sensitive issues, such as militant Islam or the Kurdish question. I read My Name is Red in Istanbul, where it's set: a fabulous murder mystery is set in a much broader, deeper novel about the nature of power and patronage, and uses the debate over painting – to continue with the old Persian techniques of miniature painting, or to adopt techniques from the west such as perspective and realistic portraiture – to carry a wealth of fascinating detail and discussion.
· Gunter Grass Tin Drum: A little old fashioned now, but still immensely evocative and mocking of the crazy pre-war years in Germany, although Grass’s liberal credentials have been slightly sullied in recent years. Some of his other novels, especially The Flounder, which is a feminist cookery book in disguise, are also very fine. However, he can be a bit bizarre on first reading – you need time to “tune in”.
· Tom Stoppard Arcadia: The ultimate wordsmith, great fun to see on stage, but even better to read and savour. It’s very hard to pick a favourite Stoppard, but this or The Invention of Love, a very moving play about A E Housman, are probably mine.
· Kazuo Ishiguro A Pale View of Hills: Ishiguro is a perceptive novelist of, typically, gentle sadness and regret. His works are beautiful but might, after much re-reading, lose their lustre, I fear. This novel, and The Remains of the Day with its splendid portrait of the butler regretting his past, but without really realising it, are the ones I am most likely to want to read again.
· Seamus Heaney District and Circle: I needed a poet, and Heaney is my choice for the challenge he always poses, the strength and vigour of his lines, but also for his accessibility. His poems have a physical presence which I find very sympathetic, as in these lines from The Blackbird of Glanmore:
"Hedge-hop, I am absolute
For you, your ready talkback,
Your each stand-offish comeback,
Your picky, nervy goldbeak -
On the grass when I arrive,
In the ivy when I leave."
Still precious few women, and they’re mostly white, but five of them are still alive and three are non-European. This list scores 20 out of 32, a marked improvement, though I find it much less comfortable to think that they might be all I had through a prolonged isolation. I could do much “better” by choosing works I’ve read and enjoyed but which I personally don’t expect to revisit very often – such as Toni Morrison, for example. On my desert island, I might have to adopt Disraeli’s tactic: “When I want to read a novel, I write one”!
I’m sure there are people out there who think I’m missing great candidates (and I’m sure they’re right), so please tell me. Harriet Devine should easily be able to offer me eight female writers, for example, or Equiano some African ones!