Coming Up for Air
I had never read Orwell until 1994. I avoided 1984 in 1984 and read Brave New World instead. I bought this novel in Calangute in Goa, India. I read it in my room in Anjuna. That was the first time and last time I read it. It is my favourite book ever. Since then I have always had a copy but never read it again. I sold the first copy back to the bookshop in Calangute. I bought another in England, someone borrowed it and never returned it. I bought another. This was burnt on a fire of all my books in an argument with my ex-wife. A few days later I kicked over the fire and the only remaining fragment of all the books as the cover of this one. I bought another. At the age of 45 I picked it up and read the opening page. It is the lead character’s 45th birthday. Wow.
I still love this book, I love Orwell’s work and have read all the rest of his stuff after this. The book is everything I like, great visual detail, studied, clever, and very human. It spoke to me on levels that no other book had.
The Lord of the Rings
I’ve read other Tolkien but this book is his best. He was clearly properly inspired when he wrote it.
The Alexandria Quartet
After reading this book I had to go to Alexandria, and I did. This book is not an easy read, you have to read vey slowing to suck in all the detail, it is almost – very long form poetry.
My Family and Other Animals
I loved this as a kid. However I found out later that he fairly fibbed, as it is a memoir. not an autobiography.
Long Dark Teatime of the Soul
Douglas Adams tried very hard with this book, it’s way better than the previous Dirk Gently book.
Dune
It took me a long time to get to read this book. I ended up with my grandads copy. I saw him reading it when I was a kid and I loved the sand-crawler thing on the front cover.
Three Biggles Books
Johns did inspire me to write. See more on the Biggles page.