Sitting here musing on a slightly cloudy sunday afternoon and dashing off another couple of poems, I started wondering in that quisical way that you do sometimes, well I do often, which other literary masterpiece . poetic or prose you talented lot wish you had written, and why but just to make it a little harder money can not figure within your reasons.

This could be harder than it looks but please don't be put off you can offer more than one piece but the reasons should be different.

Hi, I wish I'd written The Great Gatsby because I love it! (Reason enough, surely). It's a short book that says so much, so beautifully, and so movingly. I've read it about four times so far, and will no doubt carry on rereading it for the rest of my days.

Adele.

I suppose I should add my wish and it is one of Charles Dickens' books, 'Barnaby Rudge,' not as well known as some but a superbly decriptive book , as were most of his, about life , destitution and the struggles of that time.

can I have a few?
1) the Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis because of the wonderful world he creates and the fantastic non-human characters. But, most importantly, because of the way they made me feel when I first discovered them at about 10....I was transported with wonder and delight, and to know you've done that to your readers must be the most marvellous feeling.

2) The Heaven Tree trilogy by Edith Pargeter, (Ellis Peters) I don't suppose anyone else has read this, it's not at all 'literary'! But I think it is one of the most fabolous stories I've ever heard. And I love Ralf Isambard the 'sort of' villain of the first books, who turns out to be just a wonderfully flawed human in the end. A great tale of medieval honour, deception love and humanity.

3) The Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. To WANT be Wilfred Owen (which is my first instinct) is I think a bit odd, so I'll settle for this. Its just brilliant. To have realised the time so perfectly must have been stunning. I remain fascinated by the historical aspects of the first book, the interaction between Sassoon and Owen, the role of Rivers, the psychologist...and in the later boks the development of the fictitious side of the story is so moving.

4) Anything at all by Maya Angelou, prose, poetry, fiction autobiography......Simple, I just wish I WAS Maya Angelou. She is one of the most amazing women on the planet, filled with strength and grace and warmth...as is her writing

5) Skellig by David Almond. It's a gem. One of those books which transports you as you read so that the whole thing takes posession of you and you become part of the world of the story. Totally, 100% believeable, even thought its unbelievable. And the last pages are simply brilliant writing, the last line is a master stroke and, quite simply, never fails to reduce me to tears of sheer joy.

There are more, but I better stop!
x
tc

The Book of Revelations - it's just so nasty.

JB

Night Of The Hunter by Davis Grubb - the film is fabulous, but the book is even better; an intense, poetic, fantastically well written, nightmare tale of the battle between good and evil, embodied by two little kids on the run from a fake preacher who has married then murdered their mother, and is now after them, to get his hands on the money he learned about when sharing a cell with their now hanged father. They eventually find refuge with an extraordinary Mother Goose type character who recues the 'orphans of the storm' of depression-era dust-bowl America. It is a great modern folk-tale, exciting, emotive and profound. Once read, never forgotten!

Mike