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As a boy growing up in Sudan, Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin stole a book of horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe from under his brother's pillow. Those stories made him want to be a writer.

Mohamed Barud was losing hope in a Somali prison, when an inmate in a neighbouring cell devised a secret language and tapped out the Russian novel Anna Karenina through his wall...

Baby Halder grew up loving books, but by the age of only 12, she was married and no longer at school. After fleeing in search of a better life with her children, she found employment in the home of an academic with a library, and he encouraged her to read. Her encounter with Taslima Nasreen's book My Girlhood changed the way she thought about her life, and her future.

From a young age, Julie Powell had been enthralled by a book in her mother's pantry: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was co-authored by one of America's culinary titans - the eccentric but pioneering TV chef, Julia Child. Years later when Julie was working as a secretary and suffering from depression, she returned to Julia Child's book, but this time she decided she was going to master its recipes - all 524 of them, and she would do it in a single year.
The books mentioned in this edition of Outlook are: Tales of Mystery and Terror by Edgar Allen Poe; Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy; My Girlhood or Amar Meyebela by Taslima Nasreen; Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

Presenter: Saskia Collette
Producer: Laura Thomas