A couple of times a year a list of books appears that someone else thinks that you need to have read to have become a complete reader or person or something else. The latest one was on the BBC a few weeks ago and was called The 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. The link is here for those that want to go and see how many they have read.
The premise behind this latest one was to have a list of novels that have in some way affected or had some impact on that particular group of readers that compiled the list. I thought it was an interesting selection, but as with a lot of the others that are published, it did feel like a list of books that others feel you ought to read rather than books that someone else genuinely loved. So I thought, how difficult is this to do?
It turns out actually more difficult than I thought. Mostly because narrowing it down to 100 is hard. Really hard.
I thought long and hard about which authors to include and then which of their books were my favourites. I have tried to include one each of their books in each of the categories that I selected, but so easily could have of included more (ok, in some cases all of them).
So why these books?
Well, there are a variety of reasons that I have chosen these titles. There are books in this list that I loved when I first read them, there are books that helped me discover a particular genre or subject. Some have been transformational in their own way, opening my eyes to a new way of thinking, but most are here because I think that they are brilliant works written by some of the best authors.
I am not going to suggest that you must read these. I am very much of the mind that anyone should impose their reading tastes on anyone else. What I would like you to do, though is give a few of these a go, or use this list to find out about these and other authors whose writing might spark your interest or curiosity.
Travel
A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor
To a Mountain in Tibet – Colin Thubron
A Year in Provence – Peter Mayle
Tequila Oil – Hugh Thomson
French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France – Tim Moore
Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge – John Gimlette
A Dip in the Ocean: Rowing Solo Across the Indian Ocean – Sarah Outen
An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan – Jason Elliot
Old Glory: An American Voyage – Jonathan Raban
This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland – Gretel Ehrlich
Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran – Lois Pryce
Around India in 80 Trains – Monisha Rajesh
Bearback: The World Overland – Pat Garrod
Natural History
Sightlines – Kathleen Jamie
Waterlog – Roger Deakin
Landmarks – Robert Macfarlane
The Last Wilderness – Neil Ansell
Crow Country – Mark Cocker
21st Century Yokel – Tom Cox
Turning – Jessica J. Lee
Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of Nature – Chris Yates
The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland – John Lewis-Stempel
The Running Sky: A Bird-Watching Life – Tim Dee
Bird Therapy – Joe Harkness
Flora Britannica – Richard Mabey
Landscapes
Edgelands – Paul Farley & Michael Symmons Roberts
Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach – Jean Sprackland
Under the Rock: The Poetry of a Place – Benjamin Myers
Four Fields – Tim Dee
On the Marshes – Carol Donaldson
Limestone Country – Fiona Sampson
This Luminous Coast – Jules Pretty
Children’s
Stig of the Dump – Clive King
Swallowdale – Arthur Ransome
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend
Volcano Adventure – Willard Price
Asterix – René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo
Comet in Moonminland – Tove Jansson
Biography
Patrick Leigh Fermor – Artemis Cooper
Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson
The Fry Chronicles – Stephen Fry
Gavin Maxwell: A Life – Douglas Botting
Life at Walnut Tree Farm – Rufus Deakin & Titus Rowlandson
Stargazing – Peter Hill
Fiction
The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
At Hawthorn Time – Melissa Harrison
The Girl on the Landing – Paul Torday
The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John le Carré
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
Reamde – Neal Stephenson
The Gallows Pole – Benjamin Myers
Lanny – Max Porter
Elmet – Fiona Mozley
Science Fiction
Consider Phlebas – Iain M Banks
Eon – Greg Bear
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The City & the City – China Miéville
Pattern Recognition – William Gibson
Redrobe – Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Embers of War – Gareth L Powell
Books & Bookshops
Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club – Robin Ince
Stuff I’ve Been Reading – Nick Hornby
The Bookshop Book – Jen Campbell
The Bookshop That Floated Away – Sarah Henshaw
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life – Andy Miller
Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co – Jeremy Mercer
84 Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff
Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books – Tim Parks
The Gifts of Reading – Robert Macfarlane
The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu : The Race To Reach The Fabled City And The Fantastic Effort To Save Its Past – Charlie English
The Diary Of A Bookseller – Shaun Bythell
Jacob’s Room Is Full Of Books: A Year Of Reading – Susan Hill
History
SBS: The Inside Story of the Special Boat Service – John Parker
Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: The Most Notorious Double Agent of World War II – Ben Macintyre
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity – Philippe Sands
Vesuvius: The Most Famous Volcano in the World – Gillian Darley
Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox – Victoria Finlay
Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey – Rachel Hewitt
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time – Dava Sobel
Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War – John Lewis-Stempel
The Story of England – Michael Wood
Science
Bad Science – Ben Goldacre
Alex’s Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of Mathematics – Alex Bellos
Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial – Simon Singh
Ocean of Life. How Our Seas are Changing? – Callum Roberts
An Ocean Of Air: A Natural History Of The Atmosphere – Gabrielle Walker
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet – Mark Lynas
Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour – Philip Ball
Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life – Richard Cohen
Fantasy
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
Guards, Guards – Terry Pratchett
Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
Spring – William Horwood
Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch
Uprooted – Naomi Novik
Perdido Street Station – China Miéville
Magician – Raymond E. Fiest
Language
Mother Tongues: Travels Through Tribal Europe – Helena Drysdale
The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language – Mark Forsyth
Who Touched Base in My Thought Shower?: A Treasury of Unbearable Office Jargon – Steven Poole
The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities: A Yearbook of Forgotten Words – Paul Anthony Jones
The Gift Of The Gab: How Eloquence Works – David Crystal
Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language – Bill Bryson
Other Books
Passage – Andy Goldsworthy
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain
Just My Type – Simon Garfield
Paper: An Elegy – Ian Sanson
Stanza Stones – Simon Armitage
Envisioning Information – Edward Tufte
Are You Dave Gorman? – Dave Gorman
Everything Bad is Good For You – Steven Johnson
So to answer the question, that I often get asked: what is your favourite book? It is probably one of these above, or it could be another that I haven’t quite remembered as you have put me on the spot.
The sharp-eyed of you that have made it to the bottom of the list and not nodded off, will notice that there isn’t exactly 100 books in here. And that is the point really, constraining yourself to a particular number for no apparent reason isn’t that helpful in the end. It doesn’t matter if your list of favourite books has 5 or 25 or 125 books on it, the important thing is that they are your favourites and have some personal significance to you.
What do you think of these lists of books?
Would any of these appear on your list?
Let me know what you think below.
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