Deborah Harkness Has Never Read Jane Austen. Really.

What books are on your night stand?

I’m working my way through a delicious pile of historical nonfiction titles: “Shakespeare’s Book,” by Chris Laoutaris; “All That She Carried,” by Tiya Miles; and “Secret Voices,” a wonderful collection of excerpts from women’s diaries, edited by Sarah Gristwood. The passages are arranged by date, and I read that day’s entries each night. It’s fascinating to read about someone’s day centuries ago.

Describe your ideal reading experience.

In the morning, in Duke Humfrey’s Library in Oxford, with a 16th-century manuscript in front of me, deciphering each word.

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

I’ve not read a single word of Jane Austen. By admitting that, I fear I will be drummed out of the Novelists’ Corps.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?

Books are never guilty pleasures. You should never, ever feel guilty about reading something — not even the cereal box.

How did your reading life change as you were recovering from cancer?

I couldn’t escape into fictional worlds as I’d hoped, but was surprisingly drawn to biographies and diaries, which I found inspiring and comforting, especially World War II diaries. If people survived the Blitz in London, surely I could survive cancer.

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Did illness have an influence on the story you wanted to tell in the new book?

Absolutely. Ironically, I’ve been writing for years about fictional characters with genetic mutations. Once doctors diagnosed me as having the BRCA gene mutation and the ovarian cancer that in my case goes with it, I wanted to dive back into family history in “The Black Bird Oracle.”