Elfy Scott, a writer, podcaster and presenter, is a literary force whose incisive wit and intellectual curiosity is redefining the landscape of contemporary writing. Scott recently debuted her novel The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About last year, that explores the experiences of people living with complex mental health conditions, creating light and transparency through her words and personal stories. Today, Scott is currently in the midst of creating her second novel.
Drawn to the intricacies of history and the depths of the human psyche, Scott finds solace and inspiration within the pages of a book. Her latest read, The Wager by David Grann, exemplifies her love for historical non-fiction, while her current dive into Sea People by Christina Thompson highlights the current ocean non-fiction phase she's going through. Scott’s literary influences are as eclectic as her own writing. From her identification with Paddington Bear to the life-changing impact of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, her choices reveal a profound journey of intellectual and emotional discovery. She treasures Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, gifted by her father, and champions books like Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver for their raw, compelling narratives.
Below, we speak with Elfy Scott on her favourite books and the book she has read about 15 times.
The last book I read …
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. I admit it is extremely Boomer-coded narrative non-fiction but I absolutely love non-fiction and Grann is a remarkable researcher and writer (he also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon). It’s a story about an 18th Century shipwreck off Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America and it is truly wild. I know I sound like a 60-year-old man recommending it but it really was an excellent read.
On my bedside table: I am currently reading …
Ok, so, I am just now realising I’m in a bit of a non-fiction ocean phase. I’m reading Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson, which is all about investigating how people dispersed throughout the Pacific and came to settle in Polynesia before writing or any modern sailing technology.
My favourite book of all time …
This is a really cruel question. For the sake of nostalgia after thinking about the books that made me love reading to begin with, I’ll go with Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
The literary character I most identify with is …
Paddington Bear. Always getting himself into situations and can’t stop eating his favourite confection. Absolute fool, zero inhibition.
The book that changed my life is …
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. I was not a great high school student; I was extremely unmotivated and honestly never finished a single assigned book. I picked this book up in year 11 and it taught me how to be interested. I had zero concept that I was curious about learning anything before I read it, and it sent me on a path of psychology/neurology and history of science books that I absolutely loved.
I also credit this book with leading me to complete a psychology degree and engaging my deep-seated inner nerd. Before I read it I just wanted to go to art school and do lots of drugs.
The best book I ever received is…
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. My dad gave it to me after we had an argument once and I read it about four times. I love those family saga books that track through generations like White Teeth by Zadie Smith or One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
The book I would give as a gift is …
For my Asian friends: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. It’s a memoir about Zauner’s relationship with her Korean mother and it will rip the heart straight out of any first-generation children.
For others: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I read it earlier this year and I was so shaken by Kingsolver’s ability to inhabit the voice of the boy in this book. It’s a fiction but it’s roughly rooted around the rampant opioid issues in Appalachia.
I would recommend reading it after the non-fiction monster that is Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe, which explores the crimes of Purdue Pharma that played a central role in the opioid epidemic. You could buy that for a friend too – but they wouldn’t thank you for giving them the task of reading it.
Growing up, the best book on my bookshelf was …
The Tomorrow When the War Began series, which I have read in full about 15 times.
The Australian writer I admire the most is….
This is too hard and I’ll get in trouble for not mentioning friends, so I’ll say Helen Garner, Sarah Krasnostein and Kate Cole-Adams (who wrote an incredible work of non-fiction Anasthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness, which I would recommend to everybody, except people who are about to have surgery).
My favourite living author is …
My partner Evan Williams, who is a comedy writer and the kindest, silliest person alive probably. (This is a bad, soppy answer but this question is genuinely too difficult to try and answer seriously.)
A book everyone should read at least once is…
This is going to be a dark and possibly weird answer but his writing is so singular and complex and detached that I have to say something by Cormac McCarthy. I haven’t read The Road yet because I know it will destroy my climate-anxious brain but Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men changed me.
