Joanna Lumley was born in Kashmir and educated in Malaysia and Sussex. She has spent much of her life in books, reading them night and day, and sometimes even writing them. Reading is the prop and mainstay of her life, but she has wrenched herself away to act in theatre, films and television, criss-crossing the globe with television documentaries and lending her voice to as many deserving causes as she can.

Dazzled by the wit and wisdom of others, she cuts out and keeps treasured pieces she wishes she had written herself. She is married to the conductor Stephen Barlow who reads all the time: theirs is a quiet household.