Valley of the Trolley Dollies

“He’s always got his nose in a book. Or the fridge.” This, for much of my childhood, was how my mother frequently described me. I don’t recall the fridge bit being accurate, but, based on how much I love food, I’m guessing it had to be.

 

But the book thing? Oh, the book thing was spot on. I was read stories to from before I could speak. I read before I could walk. I loved (and continue to love) books. Of all sorts – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, biography, history, travel. About the only thing I can’t ever really see myself reading with any degree of pleasure is anything which features the words “Jeremy” and “Clarkson,” and omits the word “Obituary.”

 

I read books I was supposed to read, and found that some of them were wonderful. I found that many of them left me cold. I read books I wasn’t supposed to read, and found that some of them (”American Psycho,” for example) were better off unread, whilst others - poo pooed by the Litterati - were books that touched me in some way, and stayed with me far longer than anything by Thomas Hardy (e.g. the early Keller Books by Lawrence Block, a writer who makes genre fiction that makes me cry, so brilliantly does he paint the inherent sadness of the human condition).

 

I read for pleasure, for fun. As a child, for a long time, I read to escape. I think I was sitll doing it up til a few years ago, when, on every train journey, I would have my nose in a book, my earphones on, and I was in a vacuum of my own making. I read a little less now, when out in public; I try to look at the world, listen to the sound, be in it, as opposed to reading about it.Consequently try to make sure I read stuf I want to.

 

And by and large, what I want to read is a varied range of stuff. But I still read. All the time. On the loo, if there’s nothing else handy, I’ll read the label on the bottle of bleach. I read magazines, I read cookbooks, I read circulars from the council.

 

It’s what I do.

 

And some of what I’ve read, over the years, has stuck in my head and my heart. Much - a great huge ocean of it - hasn’t; but what has is a list of books I would heartily recommend to anyone anywhere who asks the immortal question “You got anythiing good I could read?”.

 

Below, in alphabetical order, is a list of 40 of those books that have meant so much to me.

 

 

 

After the First Death - Corrimer

At Swim Two Boys - Jamie O Neill

Aztec Skull; The - Anthea Goddard

Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B; The - JP Donleavy

Blue Heaven - Joe Keenan

Borderliners - Peter Hoeg

Brightness Falls - Mc Inerny

Cataline Conspiracy; The - Steven Saylor

Collected Poems - Kavanagh

Collected; The - Dorothy Parker

De Profundis - Wilde

Death Comes as the End - Christie

Devils Feather; The - Minette Walters

Dubliners (esp. Evelynn) - Joyce

Eight; The - Katherine Nevil

Free - Marsha Hunt

Great Gatsby; The - Fitzgerald

Holy Blood & The Holy Grail; The - Baigent & Leigh

I am the Cheese - Robert Corrimer

If tomorrow comes - Sidney Sheldon

Iron Hand of Mars; The - Lindsay Davis

Jazz - Alice Walker

Jewel In The Skull; The - Michael Moorcock.

Kite Runner; The - Khaled Hosseini

Last of The Savages - Jay Mc Inerny

Less Than Zero - Brett Easton Ellis

Like People In History - Felice Picano

Lord of The Flies - Goldman

Miss Smillas Sense for Snow - Hoeg

Murder on The Orient Express - Christie

Mystery of the Invisible Dog (3 Investigators series) - M.V. Carey

Nefertiti - Joanne Fletcher

Oscar Wilde - Richard Ellman

Pigman; The - Paul Zindel

Portrait of Dorian Grey; The - Wilde

Possessing The secret of Joy - Alice Walker

Sins of the Fathers - Lawrence Block

Time Traveller’s Wife; The - Audrey Niffenegger

Trials of Minnie Ashe; The - Cyril Kersh

Undertakers gone bananas; The - Paul Zindel

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.