Katherine Rundell, 38, has always been an independent spirit. She spent much of her childhood in Zimbabwe, before taking her undergraduate degree at Oxford. Later she was accepted as a fellow in English literature at All Souls College, having impressed the sitting fellows after a three-hour exam on the theme of novelty (she wrote about “Derridean deconstructionist theory and Christmas crackers”).

Rundell wrote five adventure novels for children before her first big non-fiction book, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, won the Baillie Gifford prize in 2022. She split the £50,000 prize evenly between an ocean-based conservation charity and supporting refugees. Then came Impossible Creatures, her fantasy novel for children. It won the British Book Awards children’s fiction book of the year and gained her comparisons to Philip Pullman and JK Rowling. The sequel, The Poisoned King, is out now.

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What is your favourite book by a dead author?

It feels very predictable to love Hamlet — like loving gold bullion or champagne or the ocean — but it’s the written text I adore most. I encountered it as a child and it felt like feasting on fury and drama and passion. Later I studied it for A-level; I still have my text, annotated with insightful notes like: “This is metaphor about death?” When I taught it at university it was often the play that produced the most wit and brilliance from my students; they rose to meet it. My most recent children’s book, The Poisoned King, is very loosely based on it — the story of a princess whose uncle Claude has killed the king, and who must dissemble on her road to revenge — albeit with more talking dragons. I don’t plan to tell children lest it put them off, but I hope years later they might read Hamlet and take pleasure in the bright flash of connection.

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What is your favourite book by a living author?

If a book can be perfect, I think Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is perfect. It’s a book of such intelligent, warm generosity, a story laid out by an elderly pastor, John Ames, for his beloved young son. Set in a small fictional town in Iowa in 1956, it feels at once as quiet as breathing and outstandingly ambitious. It’s about the reconciliation of faith and failure, about the grace and gallantry we can offer each other and our faltering, limping steps onwards. There are other wonderful books in the cycle — Lila and Home — but Gilead is my favourite.

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What is your favourite book by an underrated author?

Ursula K Le Guin isn’t, of course, unknown, but she’s never had the fame she deserves in the UK. I would nominate The Tombs of Atuan to win everything: the Nobel prize, the Olympics, Crufts. It’s the second in the Earthsea Quartet, the story of a child priestess in an ancient and corrupted religion; it takes place almost entirely in the dark, often beneath ground. Its atmosphere is a masterclass in conjuring; you can smell the dank of labyrinth, taste earth and dust. The moment that Tenar and Ged come out at last into the moonlit air is fantastically beautiful; I would love every young person in the country to have the delight of reading it.

The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell (Bloomsbury £14.99) is out Sep 11. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members