Jack's Literary Meme

Monday October 9, 2006

I’ve been thinking for a while about listing my favourite books, and Jack Pickard’s Book Meme has finally inspired me to do it.
Jack’s rules are strict and I’ve tried to stick to them, although I’ve cheekily added one or two categories of my own.

So onto my list…

Before I Was Ten

Badjelly the Witch by Spike Milligan
Milligan was a big hero during my early years. As a child I thought he was the funniest person around (along with the now largely forgotten Brian Cant). His poems and books for kids are still great, and my daughter has works by Milligan on her own bookshelf now.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
Also on my daughter’s shelf, but I can still remember when I discovered the brilliant drawings and poems of Dr Seuss. When I first joined a library I would use up all my borrowing allowance quota on Seuss. If I wasn’t borrowing Milligan.

Travel Books or Biographies

Travel books is a hard one, although I would recommend anything by Redmond O’Hanlon. The Art of Travel by Alan De Botton is the best, and strangest, travel book I’ve read recently.

The Orton Diaries by Joe Orton
Perhaps I’m cheating. Not biography, and not really autobiography, but it’s one of the best insights into the life of one of the most, shall we say, colourful British writers of the 1960s. Dreary bedsit life, the public toilets of Holloway Road and working with The Beatles. It’s all here. And if I really have to pick biographies, I can always change it for Prick up Your Ears, John Lahr’s excellent biography of Orton.

When I was still at school I had a Saturday job in the local library, incidentally the same library where I’d discovered Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss. There I devoured just about every biography they had, usually when I was supposed to be working. Biographies might end up as a seperate list for me in the future. Maybe a mini meme?

Non-Fiction (Any)

Revolution in the Head by Ian Macdonald
The Beatles book, and having read just about every Beatles and Lennon book published, I think I speak with some authority.
Macdonald chronicles every Beatles song recorded, from Love Me Do on 6th June 1962 to I Me Mine on 3rd January 1970. Every song, every detail and I haven’t even got round to reading the new version of this book, revised after the release of the Anthology CDs.

I don’t mind admitting that I am lost here sometimes. But he’s still a great writer. Taking a quote purely at randon, Macdonald says about the song A Day in the Life:

The message is that life is a dream and we have the power, as dreamers to make it beautiful. In this perspective, the two rising orchestral glissandi may be seen as symbolising simultaneously the moment of awakening from sleep and a spiritual ascent from fragmentation to wholeness, achieved in the final E major chord

If you need an intelligent book to do The Beatles justice, here it is.

Non-Fiction (Science)

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Okay, I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds fascinating, and I’d welcome a good debate when I have. Sometimes looking forward to a book is an exciting experience in itself. There’s also The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life? by Paul Davies, which tackles similar themes.

My other choice is a book by John Gribbin that also attempted to explain time, the universe and that sort of thing. Sorry to be so vague, but I can’t remember the title. This chap’s written so many books with similar themes and titles that it’s hard to keep track of him. But if you want good life-the-universe-and-everything, he’s your man.

Fiction (Any) With only two choices allowed here, this is tough.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
I read this aged 18 and thought at the time it was the best book I’d ever read. Strangely, I’ve never reread it, but I feel as yet no need to as the humour and energy of the book is still fresh in my memory. As you probably know, an anti war novel set during WW2, and as you probably also know, the catch is that you can’t escape active service by pretending to be mad. Because you have to be mad to be there in the first place. Great prose, great characters, at times wonderfully absurd.

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
A weird choice, and if you are aware of the size of the book you have a right to think so. Between 1998 and 2002 I studied for a degree in English, and was introduced to a wealth of literature I’d never otherwise have bothered with. Which is why I did the course in the first place, and how I came to love Clarissa.

At 1500 pages, Richarson’s masterpiece is a challenge, especially as I must warn any potential readers that it doesn’t really get going to around page 300. But it’s worth it. If you don’t know, Clarissa unfolds through a series of letters, telling the tragic story of the eponymous heroine as she falls prey to the wicked Lovelace. A simple story, yet told in the most intricate, complex and compelling way.
Worth a try, and incidentally it’s arguably the world’s first interactive book, with Richardson deciding on the outcome of events from reader’s reactions to the first chapters in its serialisation.

Favourite Writers

George Orwell.
I read Nineteen Eighty Four when I was thirteen and it was the first really grown up, adult, book I had read. And it blew me away. Until then I’d missed out on a lot of literature, restricting my reading to comics, Star Trek and Dr Who novelisations and music papers. After discovering Orwell, I went on to devour everything I could that he’d written, particularly enjoying Down and Out in Paris and London and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. His essays are also worth reading too.

Charles Dickens.
I’d always liked him, but my late English degree refreshed my affection for the man, especially Bleak House, David Copperfield and Our Mutual Friend.

Joseph Conrad
Mostly for Heart of Darkness, which is a book I do reread regularly. Put Apocalypse Now out of your mind and read this. Dark, dense and captivating. The Secret Agent is also worth a try.

HG Wells
My favourite science fiction writer. I’d seen the 1960 movie version of The Time Machine at least ten times before I read the original, but I still found Wells’ novel astounding. Especially for the slightly different ending…

Bubbling Under

Authors I currently like reading:
Jonathan Coe (The Rotters Club, What a Carve Up!), Irvine Welsh, Ian McEwan (not everything he’s written, although he is on a roll lately, particularly with Atonement), Jake Arnott (The Long Firm trilogy).

Recent Novels I Recommend

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Imaginative fantasy and magic novel, humourous to start and then slowly becomes quite dark.

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
Anti war novel by the Captain Corelli guy. He has a tendency to rant at times, but he’s a fantastic storyteller.

August and I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward
Two books that chronicle the life of a family in 60s and 70s Britain, through happy holidays, alcoholism and madness.

Other Favourite Novels

Travels With my Aunt by Graham Greene
Greene’s a great writer, and this is one of his more uncharacteristic works.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
I’ll never forget rereading this on holiday a few years ago. I was sitting on the Corsica-Sardinia ferry, totally immersed in the scene where Dracula is washed up in a shipwreck!

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
The last part of this trilogy disappointed me a little, but as a whole this is very thought provoking, imaginative and moving. And it leaves Harry Potter miles behind.

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Yet another anti war novel, but one of the best. Especially as it manages to forge a connection in the story between the First World War and modern times.

Two Favourite Genres

Ghost or horror stories in the short story form. Yes, we’re talking MR James and Edgar Allan Poe here.

Detective fiction. I discovered Sherlock Holmes at a young age and always have time for detective stories.

Favourite Plays

The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

But plays have a place elsewhere, before I start going on about Hamlet!

So I’ll stop there, before I bend this meme out of shape!

I think the John Gribbin one you mean is “in search of the Big Bang”. And you’re right. It’s a good ‘un.

JackP    9 October, 10:43 PM   

Quite likely.

I’m currently reading his book ‘In the Beginning’, where he tackles the origins of life…

Stephen    10 October, 12:21 PM   

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