what are the books to pass on to the next generation?

The Man Who Planted Trees, by Jean Giono

The Man Who Planted Trees is the story of one man's mission to bring new life to a bleak landscape in southern France. It's a story that resonates with children and grownup children alike. I used it a lot when I was teaching in primary schools. What's wonderful about Giono's novella is that it reads like non-fiction, which is the mark of all great fiction. He's one of those people who somehow manages to paint a landscape with very few words. There are no words wasted. It's one of those amazing stories that is even more relevant now than before because we are screaming to find a way of bringing new life to our planet. This is the most compelling book I know and maybe the most important. Wish I'd written it myself. Very cross about that.

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

Revolutionary Road reads as a surprisingly modern book, despite being published in 1960. It's very readable, and it still seems relevant now, which would suggest that it will stand the test of time. The book captures the dissatisfaction that a lot of people have with office life, with feeling like you're a cog in the machine and that you're cut out for something better. What I especially like is the characters' conviction that there's this other place you could go to where all your troubles would be solved. In their case, it's France. But I've got friends in New York who, when George Bush was running for the second time, vowed that if he won, they would move to Italy. They didn't, but it shows that it's still a commonplace notion in America that you can move to Europe and your life will get better.

Mrs Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

There are many books worthy of future generations, and Mrs Dalloway just happens to be one that I read recently. That said, I think it's a beautiful piece of writing that sustains the idea that you don't need omniscient narrators, and you don't need all the conventional literary carpentry in order to write a novel. It was the point at which Virginia Woolf took on the Joycean revolution of the novel and tried to tell a story from the perspective of consciousness, rather than the omniscient narrative. The story also takes place at a very interesting point in time. It is set in the late 1920s, when women had recently obtained the vote, so in some senses it speaks about the change in female consciousness that had occurred in the first two to three decades of the 20th century.

The Plague, by Albert Camus

I think I was in my mid-teens when I first read The Plague. It's a book about being aware and making choices and thinking about commitments, about some of the most important issues you have to face as a teenager. I was kind of in my angry young man stage at the time, but there was something about Camus that stuck with me. He stood out among his contemporaries as having more of a human face. The book is more instructive about how to live with meaningfulness, but there's a generosity of spirit behind the writing. His characters are very, very well drawn. I find them totally human, facing dilemmas that we all have to face. When I came home from my time in Lebanon, a friend asked if I wanted a book for the train. I immediately asked for Camus. It was just spontaneous. Somebody who can write a novel that has the power of a parable is a very great writer indeed.

The Iliad, by Homer

My dad first read The Iliad to me when I was about 12. Seeing passages written 2,500 years ago moving him to tears really influenced how I thought about the past. I just loved the story – it is astonishing, the story of Troy, and all of the different conflicts, tangles and relationships, the heroes and heroines. Re-reading it when I was older, I got more from the more complex love relationships – the warriors departing and leaving their wives and lovers, knowing they were not coming back. It is about war and the violence and sacrifices made. You can feel the tug of that thread from Homer's day through to today.

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe

I read Robinson Crusoe when I was about 11 and it took me on an adventure and allowed me that dream: what if . . . ? I now read it to my eldest son and I see his eyes light up just like mine did, which gives the book another magical edge. It inspired me and the work I do – I have done many desert island shows now and they are always among the most popular. It is in people's psyches to be fascinated by islands, being a castaway, and imagining what it is like to survive alone.

The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss is about the rise and fall of a Lincolnshire family and moves subtly between humour, polemic and tragedy. Each time I read it I find something new. It's a powerful, emotional story but it's also a feminist novel and the issue of women's right to education is very well expressed. George Eliot is one of those brilliant writers who manages to be polemical while telling a really good story. It would be lovely to think that the issues of class, snobbery and gender inequality it examines so movingly will seem irrelevant to the next generation – and that the book will be interesting mainly as a curiosity – but I don't think they will go away as easily as my generation of the 60s had hoped.

The Women's Room, by Marilyn French

The Women's Room isn't a literary masterpiece to compare with something like The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, which was really the first time women's experience was talked about, but it summons the atmosphere of a revolutionary period in gender politics. My copy, read in my twenties in one sitting, is full of underlinings and exclamation marks. The part that always stands out for me is where the characters are sitting around talking about independence, the importance of female friends, going to university, and one of them says, isn't it irritating when discussions about feminism end up with who does the dishes? I am certain that's as relevant now as it was in the 1970s.

Interviews by Emine Saner, Tom Meltzer, Patrick Kingsley and Nicole Jackson