What book do you recommend most to others?

Heartburn by Nora Ephron (will teach you about love), Any Human Heart by William Boyd (will teach you about life), Delight by JB Priestley (will teach you about gratitude) and Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe (will make you howl with laughter).

Which lesson has been the hardest to learn?

That not everyone will like or understand you and that is not only not a failing but entirely inevitable if you want to live with an iota of integrity.

What food sums up happiness?

Spaghetti. 

What have you never understood?

Most things to do with numbers. Division, the stock market, mortgages, tax, centuries.

What is the one thing you want to know before you die?

I wish I could know everything about my parents’ lives before they had my brother and I.

Are you scared of dying or what happens when you die?

I am petrified of dying with unanswered questions, unvisited places, unfinished business or unattained dreams. I don’t want to lie on my deathbed with FOMO, basically. What happens afterwards doesn’t bother me so much.

Quinoa or Quavers?

I have space in my life and cupboards for both.

Dolly Alderton gets real about love, monogamy and the books that changed her life