Autobiography

Back to top

An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan

Don't confuse the film with the Tom Hanks bore-a-thon of the same name. This film is more real, more watchable and only for the boys.

If you read only one book about poverty, read this one. In my view, Orwell’s best writing is his social commentary rather than his famous novels. But you have to read 1984 as well, if only to know what all the fuss was about.

If we must learn history or be condemned to repeat it, then there are certain books that we all should read. This is an account of life in Auschwitz. With Solzhenitsyn and Jung Chang, this is the third of the three huge holocausts of the twentieth century. How lucky we are we live in a more peaceful world. How necessary to learn the lessons to keep these things at bay.

A big book, in every sense. Nelson Mandela's account of his life and his struggle from prisoner to President of South Africa. This changed how I saw Mandela, for the better, and it was a wonderful read from beginning to end.

It was made into a film starring Daniel Day Lewis.

How do you choose just one Bill Bryson? I suppose by first reading them all and then sticking a pin in your bookcase. I chose this one for two reasons. First, it's about America, a topic I love to read about, and Bryson poking fun at his own country is at least as good as him poking fun at mine or yours. Second, I have a copy I bought on ebay signed by the author (yes, I know) so it's more prominent on my bookshelf than the others.  But I recommend every other one of his books too, especially A Short History of Nearly Everything (despite it being a misnomer: it should really be A Reasonably Detailed History of Quite a Lot).

While his novels are all easy-readers, his auto-biography is probably the one deserving reading more than once. The description of the R100 and R101 projects both entertains and enlightens, demonstrating the superiority of the small hungry project team to the large bureaucratic one. And does this book lay to rest an old Computing myth? It is often said that the term “bug” to mean a glitch in a computer system derives from the late 1950s when Grace Hopper discovered a moth had brought down an early US navy computer. But Slide Rule was published in 1954 and describes bugs in the design of airships in the 1930s. Please tell me if you know better.

We who live in peaceful rich democratic free countries have a moral obligation to learn about those who live in less fortunate circumstances. If you read only one book about tyranny, read this one.

Wonderful though allegorical books like Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and The Alchemist are, this book spoke to me more about the essence of meaning in life than all the allegories put together. A simple, gripping tale of life and death. If it wasn’t true you wouldn’t believe it.

Fiction

Back to top

A Passage to India, E.M. Forster

I came to Dickens late and, luckily for me, this was the first of his I read. Everyone knows the first line but the last line is just as good and a wonderful story in between. As well as a cracking good read I learnt a huge amount about the French revolution.

I also loved and recommend The Girl at the Lion D'Or, Charlotte Gray and On Green Dolphin Street.

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

A wonderful, wonderful book. Like Catch-22, humour and tragedy in the same war setting. But also a wonderful love story. Shame about the film, shame Louis de Bernieres can never again write a book as good.

A great, great book - hugely funny and hugely tragic. Yossarian and his friends are American bomber pilots in Italy in the latter stages of WWII. They realise that theirs is a dangerous job and they want to go home but cannot go as they caught out by Catch-22. They can go when they complete all their missions but as soon as they are near completing their missions, the target is raised to prove the heroism of their seniors. The only other way out is to go mad but no-one will offer it unless you ask and if you ask it just shows you can't be mad. This is Catch-22: you lose if you do and you lose if you don't.

I loved the book, I loved the film (well, it co-starred Michelle Pfeiffer, with Glenn Close and John Malkovitch), I loved the West End play.

Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak (25)

Hemingway wrote like Elvis performed. Imitators did exactly the same things but just weren't the real thing. All of Hemingway is worth reading, but this one's my favourite and not just because the hero's called Robert. It's a war story, it's a love story, it's beautifully written.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

It's very good, but I'm not sure why. It's easy to read and it might make you feel better about seagulls.

The Life and Loves of a She-devil, Fay Weldon

A fantastical book about being marooned on a small boat with a man-eating tiger. A wonderful read, spoilt only slightly by the man-eating island.

The films are so easy to watch and the books are so easy to read. Good for a bit of easy relaxation on the beach.

Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse

All of Clavell’s novels are cracking good stories but more than that, they set a western reader into an eastern world in a way that s

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (25)

Red Dragon, Thomas Harris

Say the words Desert island and we all think of living alone marooned on a tropical island with golden beaches, palm trees, jungle and incessant sunshine, don’t we? Without this book, would there be Castaway (qv), the Tom Hanks Castaway, The Beach (qv), Lord of the Flies, ITV’s Survivor, Desert Island Discs, and so on? Has any one work of fiction other than the Bible had such a lasting effect on our consciousness?

Rogue Male, Geoffrey Household

A charming love story and a whodunit in one. Both elements keep you turning the pages.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Lord of the Flies for grownups. Was Garland really only in his mid-20s when he wrote it? Amazing. A great story.

The Cider House Rules, John Irving

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon

Does anyone develop the story in a thriller better Frederick Forsyth? All his books are well-researched and the plot keeps you guessing and turning the pages until an ending which you can never guess and never fails to satisfy. This is my favourite followed by The Odessa File.

I don’t like Graham Greene novels. Too much Catholic guilt getting in the way of people’s lives for my taste. But in this one the strength of the plot carries the day and the need to know how the love triangle works itself out makes you read it to an end you wouldn’t predict.

Actually, I think I preferred Raphael’s Richard’s Things but TGP is better known and probably more deserving of another read.

Better known to TV viewers as The Darling Buds of May, which is the first book of five in The Pop Larkin Chronicles. Get the complete chronicles if it is in print. The TV series was a hit, partly through the performances of David Jason, Pam Ferris and Catherine Zeta Jones, partly through the gentle but wonderful humour of the original novels. Reading the novels having seen the series is like reading a James Bond novel; the characters and situations seem like old friends but the reading experience is a treat in itself. They're light, they're easy, they make you feel good. 

Is there a better story of passion?

Historical Fiction

Back to top

Maybe the best novel written about war, Birdsong included. Perhaps its importance is more for those on the allied side at is was written by a German. Is the biggest irony of war that the people doing the fighting on each side are just the same as each other?

Cry the beloved country, Alan Paton

I, Claudius, Robert Graves

Powerful, scary and true, the event described (an unprovoked multiple murder) may not have much significance to those not directly affected, but Capote’s description of it affects your view of human nature.

I read this at an impressionable age and it made an impression. Specifically, I was 17¾. The TV series had been on. Very vivid and, ooh, twenty something years on, Kunte Kinte, Kizzie and Chicken George are still with me. Probably the best thing I read about American history until I discovered Steinbeck nearly twenty years later.

If I hadn't read this book, the Migrant Mother picture (see picture 65, here) who probably have meant much less to me and I suspect I wouldn't have drawn it.

I’m not a socialist or a socialist sympathiser but, like George Orwell’s social commentaries, this talks about the dignity of the hard-trodden working man. The politics may be a bit black and white but it is a powerful testament and remarkable to think the author wrote nothing else and this wasn’t published in his lifetime.

A little dated now but as a boy I loved the war escape stories. The Wooden Horse is probably the best of them; an amazing story very well written. The Colditz stories by Pat Reid are also very good.

Fantasy

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

I don’t care if some adults sneer; I like the Harry Potter books. My daughter adores them and has read them all several times. You should read them all in order but my favourite (of the first six) is the latest: it has the scary monsters, an exciting ending with a big surprise (unless you already know) and as much daftness and humour as you need. It also ties together a lot of the plot from earlier books (mostly referring back to the Chamber of Secrets) whilst seemingly preparing the ground for the story of the next and supposedly last in the series. Must we wait another two years before that one comes out?

Not as serious as Lord of the Rings, not as witty as Harry Potter, but bigger in scope and more thought-provoking than either. Any book that has its central elements parallel universes, souls, witches, angels, life after death and a guest appearance by God better be good to be credible. It’s better than good, it’s an immensely powerful read that will stretch your mind. And you’ll look at Oxford with different eyes too.

Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

Perfume, Patrick Süskind

There was once an episode of Friends in which Joey and Chandler determined that the film of The Shining was The Scariest Thing Ever. Well, the book is the only book I have ever read as an adult that made me too scared to turn the light off afterwards.

History

Back to top

If we are to learn from history, first we must learn some history. Hiroshima is short and taut and should be read by everyone. You too.

The Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, (25)

This is the book of the LWT TV series in the 1970s. 25 or so 1 hour programmes each depicting an episode of WWII, narrated by Laurence Olivier, or one of those. See it on TV if possible. It not only taught me the basics of the run-up and action, it opened my eyes for the first time to the horrors of the concentration camps. Like Hiroshima and The Gulag Archipelago, no person should think of themselves as educated without a basic understanding of this stuff.

Humour

Back to top

One of those books that you laugh out loud while you are reading. Bridget is lovely and charming and leaves you feeling happier.

Bridget Jones ten years on. Just as funny, just as charming, just as heroic, just as good to read.

If you saw the TV series in the 1970s the books (there are three) are just as hugely funny. I didn’t get where I am today without reading them all three times. Great. Super.

Management

Back to top

PS I originally put this in humour but I realised that its true place is in the management credo section.

This is a book about business. No, no, come back. After the Dilbert books it's the most coherent account of what is wrong with corporate management that I have seen. Semler inherited the family business and turned it upside-down, making it much more successful in the process. It's easy to read, it's refreshing, it will make you laugh and it will show you some ways of improving your business whilst having some fun.

I read this in South America. It is a description of how the working world is changing from the old-style go-to-work-for-a-company-for-50-years to the new style portfolio career – sometimes employed, sometimes self-employed, sometimes study work sometimes voluntary work. The portfolio career isn’t for everyone but it made me realise I wasn’t alone and strengthened my belief in the directions I take.

One of the few books that I have read, and probably the longest, where as soon as I finished it the first time I went back to the start and read it again. If you happen to be considering studying for an MBA (what, you're not?) buy, beg, steal or borrow a copy of this book. But not mine.

Miscellaneous

Back to top

By the way, don't even think of asking to borrow my copy. I've lent this book out twice now and didn't get either of them back.

So what? I like it and when I was a kid it taught me a huge amount about the world, even if I never found out why so many records were set in Illinois. Now my daughter reads it and recently found a reference to her great-great-great-great-grandfather.

And what is good to read, Phaedrus, and what is not? Who needs others to tell us these things?

Science

Back to top

Yes, I read it and, yes, it's very good. When I was an undergraduate Stephen Hawking in his wheelchair was a common sight around Cambridge. One of my friends was a maths graduate who was in one of Hawking's seminar groups. He said that Hawking would get excited trying to explain some bit of theory, start waving his arms around and fall out of his wheelchair. They didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Who would have thought that the same man would write a best-selling book, be a character in The Simpsons and be a vocalist on a Pink Floyd album? Read the book if you can.

Asimov’s Guide to Science, Isaac Asimov