Novelist Louise Doughty wrote the bestselling psychological thriller Apple Tree Yard, that was adapted into a hit BBC drama starring Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin. Here she chooses her favourite holiday reads.

I love a well-written memoir, preferably by a woman novelist of a certain age – someone who takes all their storytelling skills and applies them to a true story; Annie Ernaux, Deborah Levy and Rachel Cusk are favourites but recently I’ve read great memoirs by Arifa Akbar (Consumed), Noreen Masoud (A Flat Place) and Kit de Waal (Without Warning & Only Sometimes) that have all blown me away. At their best, a good memoir makes you feel you have just had the greatest gossip ever with your most intelligent friend.

A novel that absorbs me is often one that’s written with a deceptively light touch; anything by Joanna Cannon, Jill Dawson or Elif Shafak is likely to ring my bell, and luckily for me they all have new ones out recently.

I’m also a great fan of narrative non-fiction; Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling more than deserves its place in the bestseller lists, but if you want a truly absorbing holiday read you can’t go wrong with non-fiction classics like People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry, Iphigenia in Forest Hills by Janet Malcolm or In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. True crime may seem like an odd choice for the beach, but what I want above all is to be absorbed by something that isn’t exploitative but gives me a whole new level of insight into human nature.

Louise Doughty’s new memoir On This Spot Fell One Tear Of Love is out now. www.louisedoughty.com