Five years ago I wrote a blog post as a response to yet another book list that the great and the good in the literary world insist are the books that everyone should read. That post is here. I thought that after five years I needed to add to that list of books that I have discovered and read in that time.
My previous list has generally been received well, bar one person who though my fiction choices were not worthy of being on my list. And that kind of proved the point of what I was trying to do, we select the culture that we want to consume, be it books, films, art and theatre. Having it imposed on us, by someone who thinks that their opinions and choices are more worthy than your own, is just utterly wrong.
Revisiting it was also prompted by the New Time posting their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century earlier this year, their post is here
These were chosen by 503 authors, primarily novelists , with a little assistance from the NYT staff. The fill list is heavily biased towards novels and it gives you the option of selecting the books that you have read in the past or are on your TBR. Here are mine:
As you can see, I haven’t read that many and haven’t got plans to read many more…
I thought the same when I read the BBC list five years ago that made me write the blog post: I am not sure how some of these books got there. It feels like people want to be seen to be reading the books that they feel should be seen reading, rather than being passionate about them.
I have come to the conclusion that forging my own reading path is the way to go. I have read enough books over the years to know what I want to read, but it is always good to push the boundaries. I chose books based on a number of factors, who wrote it, what genre it is, the subject matter, does the premise of the story look interesting and even did the cover made me want to pick it up. Very rarely do I read a terrible book, however, not all of the books I pick up, I like, and it is almost always because it didn’t work for me.
If people come along for the walk with me and discover new things for themselves then that is great. And that is the fundamental point here; the books I have listed below are those that I have loved for a variety of reasons, that at the time I read them meant a lot to me. Not everyone will have the same opinion on these books, and I am not going to insist people read them. However, if you are looking for a recommendation for a book from a particular genre, I hope that you find one from the list below to try.
So here they are:
Art
Feather, Leaf, Bark & Stone by Jackie Morris
Ravilious: Wood Engravings by James Russell
England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion’s Psychic Landscape by Stephen Ellcock& Mat Osman
Biography
Tales From The Life Of Bruce Wannell: Adventurer, Linguist, Orientalist by Ed. Barnaby Rogerson & Rose Baring
The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin by Patrick Barkham
Books
The Book Collectors of Daraya: A Band of Syrian Rebels, Their Underground Library, and the Stories that Carried Them Through a War by Delphine Minoui
The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham
White Spines: Confessions Of A Book Collector by Nicholas Royle
Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour Of The Bookshops Of Britain by Robin Ince
Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Village by Lamorna Ash
Dorset
Real Dorset by Jon Woolcott
Lost Dorset: The Towns by David Burnett
Economics
Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back by Oliver Bullough
Environmental
The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables For A Planet In Crisis by Amitav Ghosh
Rebirding: Rewilding Britain and Its Birds by Benedict MacDonald
Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire
Silent Earth: Averting The Insect Apocalypse by Dave Goulson
Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval by Gaia Vince
Ravenous: How To Get Ourselves And Our Planet Into Shape by Henry Dimbleby
Fire, Storm & Flood: The Violence of Climate Change by James Dyke
Irreplaceable: The Fight To Save Our Wild Places by Julian Hoffman
Fantasy
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
The Shepherds Crown by Terry Pratchett
Seriously Funny: The Endlessly Quotable Terry Pratchett by Terry Pratchett
Fiction
Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
London Incognita by Gary Budden
Fox Fires by Wyl Menmuir
Food & Drink
Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them by Dan Saladino
Gardening
Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden by Lulah Ellender
History
Mudlarking: Lost And Found On The River Thames by Lara Maiklem
London Clay: Journeys into the Deep City by Tom Chivers
Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain by Corrine Fowler
Landscape
Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places by Gareth E. Rees
Field Notes: Walking The Territory by Maxim Peter Griffin
The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us by Nick Hayes
Wild Service: A Culture Of Connection And Care by Nick Hayes (Ed)
Where: Life and Death In the Shropshire Hills by Simon Moreton
Media
The Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain by Phil Harrison
Memoir
Two Lights: Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life by James Roberts
Ghost Town: A Liverpool Shadowplay by Jeff Young
Seaglass: Essays, Moments and Reflections by Kathryn Tann
Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Spring Rain by Marc Hamer
Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir Of Poverty, Nature And Resilience by Natasha Carthew
Water and Sky: Voices from the Riverside by Neil Sentance
Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside by Rebecca Smith
Mental Health
How To Be Sad: Everything I’ve Learned About Getting Happier, By Being Sad, Better by Helen Russell
Miscellaneous
Music To Eat Cake By: Essays on Birds, Words and Everything in Between by Lev Parikian
The Notebook: A History Of Thinking On Paper by Ronald Allen
Natural History
Singing Like Larks: A Celebration Of Birds In Folk Songs by Andrew Millham
Orchard: A Year In England’s Eden by Benedict MacDonald & Nicholas Gates
On Gallows Down: A Memoir by Nicola Chester
Wild About Dorset: The Nature Diary of a West Country Parish by Brian Jackman
The Screaming Sky by Charles Foster
The Book Of Pebbles: From Prehistory To The Pet Shop Boys by Christopher Stocks
Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
The New Wild by Fred Pearce
The Lost Rainforests Of Britain by Guy Shrubsole
Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides by Heather Buttivant
Cull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of Conservation by Hugh Warwick
Much Ado About Mothing: A Year Intoxicated By Britain’s Rare And Remarkable Moths by James Lowen
Cairn by Kathleen Jamie
The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives by Katie Holten
Into The Tangled Bank: In Which Our Author Ventures Outdoors to Consider the British in Nature by Lev Parikian
Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Ancient Seasons by Lev Parikian
The Lost Orchards: Redicovering The Forgotten Cider Apples Of Dorset by Liz Copas & Nick Poole
The Circling Sky: On Nature and Belonging in an English Forest by Neil Ansell
Emperors, Admirals and Chimney Sweepers: The Naming of Butterflies and Moths by Peter Marren
Living with Trees: A Common Ground Handbook by Robin Walter
Shearwater: A Bird, an Ocean, and a Long Way Home by Roger Morgan-Grenville
Restoring The Wild: Sixty Years of Rewilding Our Skies, Woods and Waterways by Roy Dennis
Vickery’s Folk Flora: An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants by Roy Vickery
Skylarks With Rosie: A Somerset Spring by Stephen Moss
Nests by Susan Ogilvy
Greenery by Tim Dee
The Draw Of The Sea by Wyl Menmuir
Late Light: Finding Home In The West Country by Michael Malay
Poetry
Springlines: Exploring Hidden and Mysterious Bodies of Water by Clare Best and Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis
The Heeding by Rob Cowen & Nick Hayes
Prehistory
Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors by James Canton
Science
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men by Caroline Criado-Perez
Taking Flight: A Celebration Of The Miraculous Phenomenon Of Flight by Lev Parikian
A Natural History Of The Future: What The Laws Of Biology Tell Us About The Destiny Of The Human Species by Rob Dunn
Science Fiction
Doggerland by Ben Smith
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Before Mars by Emma Newman
Atlas Alone by Emma Newman
Under The Blue by Oana Aristide
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
The Rosewater Redemption by Tade Thompson
Social History
The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save it by Stuart Maconie
Sport
Where There’s A Will by Emily Chappell
Technology
This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth
Travel
Notes from the Cévennes: Half a Lifetime in Provincial France by Adam Thorpe
Local: A Search for Nearby Nature and Wildness by Alastair Humphreys
The Bells of Old Tokyo: Travels in Japanese Time by Anna Sherman
Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes Through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland by Caroline Eden
The Frayed Atlantic Edge: A Historian’s Journey from Shetland to the Channel by David Gange
Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy by Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley
Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World by Elspeth Beard
Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past by Gail Simmons
Sunken Lands: A Journey Through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds by Gareth E. Rees
Warriors: Life And Death Among The Somalis by Gerald Hanley
The Lost Paths: A History Of How We Walk From Here To There by Jack Cornish
Water Ways: A Thousand Miles Along Britain’s Canals by Jasper Winn
The Gardens of Mars: Madagascar, an Island Story by John Gimlette
La Vie: A Year In Rural France by John Lewis-Stempel
To The Lake: A Balkan Journey Of War And Peace by Kapka Kassabova
Among Muslims by Kathleen Jamie
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell
The Serpent Coiled in Naples by Marius Kociejowski
Summer In The Islands: An Italian Odyssey by Matthew Fort
Gathering Carrageen by Monica Connell
The Way Of The World: Two Men In A Car From Geneva To The Khyber Pass by Nicolas Bouvier, Translated By Robyn Marsack
Black Ghosts by Noo Saro-Wiwi
Naples ’44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth by Norman Lewis
Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 by Ralph Izzard & Molly Izzard
Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in the Two Worlds of Peru by Ronald Wright
The Ravens Nest by Sarah Thomas
Signs of Life: To the Ends of the Earth with a Doctor by Stephen Fabes
The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey by Tim Hannigan
Slow Trains Around Spain: A 3,000-Mile Adventure on 52 Rides by Tom Chesshyre
High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland by Tom Parfitt
One Place De L’Eglise: A Year Or Two In A French Village by Trevor Dolby
Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place by Alice Maddicott
Woodlands
Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree: Getting To Know Trees Through The Language Of Scent by David George Haskell
Well of course I’ve read quite a lot of these! I don’t like reading the latest trendy books and usually regret it when I do (Girl with a Pearl Earring, I’m looking at you) but I love backlist books and odd ones – and I love book blogging and the super overlaps I have especially with other nonfiction fans like you. Long may we plough our own reading furrows!
It may be unfair to the authors but when they list their favourite books and recommendations I wonder how many are written by friends or those who have helped on their journey to publication and beyond.
It happens quite a lot!! Private Eye often report on the mutual congratulations that go on between authors.
Well Paul, it won’t surprise you in the slightest when I say I have read and loved many, many of these!
Forging your own reading path is definitely the way to go! I’ve done this for many years now and it works for me. I pretty much know what I like and it is rare that something I have looked forward to turns out to be rubbish.
Does happen though – this year it was an absolute stinker by Noah Angell called Ghosts of the British Museum.
Your reading path and mine are often parallel lines and I love that. Shows you have impeccable taste of course! But seriously, I often look at a new book and think ‘Paul will be adding that shortly’.
I’ve just looked at my reading stats for 2024 and I’ve read over 90 books, only 2 of which were fiction. That’s about right for me. Mind you, one of the fiction ones was a 5 star read by the wonderful Haruki Murakami, his latest.
Hope you’ve had a great Christmas, got a ton of new books, and very best wishes for 2025.
We do have such an overlap, Penny. I know when I am reading a book, I often know that you will like it too.
I have nearly completed my reading journey for this year and have been preparing for next year!
I have read 12 and have 2 on my TBR. I am definitely on my own reading journey.
And that is the best way, Marcene
I do enjoy your lists as I know we appreciate the same sort of books. Will cost me money though 😀
Sorry!!