The Book Tower

Here’s my complete list. Reading has unfortunately taken a backseat in this Singstar heavy seasonal period, although I have an ever growing list to tackle in January…

Fiction

1. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian)
2. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (Man’s Best Friend)
3. The Girl at the Lion d’Or by Sebastian Faulks (Between the Wars)
4. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend)
5. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip)
6. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (Forgetting Cold Mountain)
7. Skin Lane by Nigel Bartlett (Living in the Past)
8. The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
9. Day by A.L. Kennedy
10. The Book of Dave by Will Self (Screaming at the Future)
11. The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (The Drowned World)
12. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (Spirited Away)
13. The Giant, O’Brien by Hilary Mantel
14. A Partisan’s Daughter by Louis de Bernières (Louis Lite)
15. Remainder by Tom McCarthy (Remainder)
16. Slam by Nick Hornby (Slam)
17. The Dream Lover by William Boyd
18. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
19. Gold by Dan Rhodes (Gold)
20. Then we Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (End Game)
21. What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (What Was Lost)
22. Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care)
23. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (Help, I’m a Fish)
24. Born Yesterday by Gordon Burn (Yesterday’s News)
25. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
26. The Quiet American by Graham Greene (The Quiet American)
27. Youth and the End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad (Youth, oh Youth)
28. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
29. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (The End of the Affair)
30. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino (If on a Summer’s Holiday a Blogger)
31. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
32. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Child 44)
33. Tell No One by Harlan Coben
34. Man in the Dark by Paul Auster (Darkness Falls)
35. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft (Sinister Matters)
36. The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday (Sweet White Wine)
37. The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill (The Man in the Picture)
38. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
39. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (Road to Neverwhere)
40. Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee
41. Just After Sunset by Stephen King (Just After Sunset)
42. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
43. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (Mother Makes Five)
44. Casting the Runes and other Ghost Stories by M.R. James

Non Fiction

1. Miracles of Life by J.G.Ballard (God Bless Mr Ballard)
2. Essays in Love by Alain de Botton (Love Letters)
3. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson (Brushing Up)
4. Paul Weller: The Changing Man by Paulo Hewitt (Paul Weller)
5. Bit of a Blur by Alex James (Bit of a Blur)
6. When you are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris (David Sedaris)
7. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (Whicher’s World)
8. John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (Life With the Lennons, Life With the Onos, Sometime in New York City)
9. Have You Seen…? by David Thomson (Have You Seen…?)

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From Booking Through Thursday:

What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?

My mother used to take me to the library. I remember it being a very long walk, across the iron bridges that crossed the railway, down an endless leafy street, through a park and past the milk depot. A really, really long walk for a child but one that planted a desire for books within me (like a thirsty man crawling across a desert towards an oasis, I knew that there was something worthwhile at the end of my trek).

I was always deposited in the children’s library as my mother disappeared into the main section. Left to my own devices, I would usually drift towards the work of Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss. I went for humour in those days and these were my favourites. My mother would, on returning to collect me, urge me to borrow the Just William books that she’s enjoyed in her childhood. I sometimes did, and enjoyed them too. My only other earliest memories are factual books, the inevitable dinosaurs and astronomy. I remember being particularly fond of one giant textbook entitled What Makes it Go.

Taught exemplary library manners, I would present my borrowing selection to the librarian (four at any one time I recall) all neatly opened at the correct page and ready for stamping. Other library etiquette, such as keeping quiet at all times, appears to have come to me instinctively. This seemed to put me in good stead as, ten years or so later, I applied for and was accepted as a Saturday assistant in the same library. I didn’t work in the children’s library, and was instead left to deal with the pensioners and their hardback mysteries, and the Dads of schoolmates who would sometimes recognise me. It was a pretty laid back job, although I always fell down on one thing. People returning their books late were subject to fines but I always felt awkward making them pay. People penalised to savouring their books just a little bit too long? It didn’t seem fair.

These days I’m a slave to Amazon. I visit a library only rarely and I sometimes feel a pang of guilt; I should browse and I should borrow. Although I suspect I would over-borrow, take too long to read and end up being fined. I did introduce my daughter to the library in her early years and admit being put off by the shelves of DVDs that have the habit of enticing children away from books. And because of this we now tend to treat our local Waterstones as library-ish. You can’t borrow, but you sure can spend a long time hiding in a corner and reading.

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