Authors rather than books. Kurt Vonnegut, who makes the art of writing look so deceptively simple - until you try emulating it; Thomas H Cook for the humanity he conveys; John Connolly for the thrills; China Mieville for all those obscure words; Nevil Shute, Hammond Innes and Duncan Kyle for taking me to nearly every country in the world without leaving my chair; and Eugene Marais for turning his life's passion into literature.

As a child: 'Shadow the Sheepdog' by Enid Blyton; idyllic.
As a youth: 'The Long Walk' by Slavomir Rawicz. A stunning and true tale of human hope and endurance.
Adulthood, and the dark clouds gather: anything by Joseph Conrad and William Golding; especially Golding's 'Darkness visible'.

Just discovered Marguerite Yourcenar; her 'Memoirs of Hadrian' (a novel in the form of a velediction) is a brilliant insight into the psyche of one of Ancient Rome's 'nicer' Emperors.

Mine would be Two Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles, the weirdest thing you can imagine, Lorrie Moore's stories and Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Whelty.
Becca.

So many wonderful books to choose from. And many are not necessarily fiction either.

I loved Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children'. I read it thinking that it was going to be a worthy book to do with Partition (separation of Pakistan from India in 1947), and so something that I SHOULD read. However, what I found instead was something full of humour and deeply layered textures. I loved the way he started the story with the main character's grandfather moving to Kashmir as a doctor(before he was born). And the descriptions of his grandparents' meeting, falling in love and then getting married, I think is simply beautiful. So, it wasn't worthy at all. I was surprised. And I love surprises.

When reading it, I adored Stephen Jay Gould's 'Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes'. He wrote books containing really accessible essays that opened up the wonder and magic of the natural world to the reader. Yes, he's chatty, and perhaps some people would find that not their cup of tea. But, the essays have great substance too. Wonderful!

Herodotus' 'Histories' is another book that I really loved reading. Tales of all the different peoples and their histories as told from a 5th Century BC perspective. All the 'strange' and daily customs, and tales of revenge, warfare and barbarism. Fantastic!

So many other fabulous books! I could be here till next week at least. So, I'll go now.

what a question

Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens

any Sherlock Holmes

Agatha Christie Poirot and Miss Marple ( I adore the Joan Hickson TV adaption0

Matilda Roald Dahl

Sagitarius Risng

Anthem for a Doomed Youth ( yes Ok its an anthology but I hae read and read it the poems are so moving)

I will read fairly much any Britsh crime novel

The Iliad

The Hobbit


The Monsieur Pampelmousse books by Michale Bond

anything by Douglas Reeman

That is but a short list I find that if I am in book reading mode then I visit the library and pick up anythging that appeals to me.

I also find considerable enjoyment from the plays and short stories on Radio 4 especially liked the Nab End extracts and will get round to reading the two books one day.

also in that ilk the Alan Clark diaries not sure if I could read them through though