My Favourite Books - the Grand Reveal

Further to last week's post, a great deal of cogitation has gone into today's list. They're not necessarily the best books, but I've derived a great deal of pleasure from them all. If you're interested in finding out more about a particular book, the link is your better bet as I've written more about why these books have a particular resonance for me.

I've divided the list into categories to make this post a bit more readable.

Formative books

These are the books which have helped to shape the way I am and my thinking.

The Cat in the Hat - one of the first books I read and I loved it's sense of fun, use of language and the realisation that being quirky and different is a good thing to be.

A Town Like Alice - I read this as a teenager initially for the strong love story, but it's a multi-layered book and I especially love its premise that an individual has the power to shape a place into something much better. I've realised lately that I've never felt 'at home' with anywhere I've lived except when I was at university. Perhaps it's about time to bring some of the strengths of Newcastle down to Chippenham.

The Kraken Wakes - my geography teacher introduced me to the delights of science fiction as a reward for looking after her garden during the hot summer of 1976 whilst she was in China. I particularly like John Wyndham's novels because he writes about everyday situations and people. His writing appealed to my need to escape from my own world at the time, and I like the premise that anyone - no matter how ordinary they are- can experience extraordinary things.

Philip's World Atlas - an unusual choice I know, but as a child I used to spend ages looking at the maps, planning where to go and giggling over the impossible juxtaposition of British place names as seen in the USA and Canada, plus the wonderful place names in Australia (who could help but love a name like Woolloomooloo?).

Viking's Dawn - my dad bought me Henry Treece's Viking trilogy as a reward for passing my 11-plus exam. I love history when it tells the story of how people lived (the later emphasis on dates, royalty and political acts at secondary school left me cold) and Treece's novels are rattling good yarns. These stories also made me realise the Vikings were more civilised than conventional history usually tells us, thus it's important to consider all sides to a particular tale.

Books evocative of a time and place

These are books which generate strong memories of where I was and what I was doing at the time.

Out of the Silent Planet - I was an average English student in my first 3 years at secondary school. Then Mrs Schiff was our teacher for the fourth year onwards and my abilities changed simply because she chose texts which I enjoyed enormously. C. S. Lewis's Narnia books will be more familiar to you, but I like his Cosmic Trilogy - this is the first of them - even more. I'll always regret the look of disappointment on her face when she asked me to study English A Level and I turned her down.

Henry the IVth Part One. Another Mrs Schiff special. I think she understood my need to be shouty at the time and so awarded me the role of Shakespeare's hot headed Hotspur.

Coming Up For Air - I read all of George Orwell's novels whilst waiting for my medical and dental student friends to finish their first year exams. I've chosen this over his more famous novels because it was the first time I found an unlikeable character and a dreary situation a compelling read. It's a novel with humour and written just before the outbreak of WWII - it's extraordinarily prescient about the changes about to happen.

To Kill a Mocking Bird - enormously popular with many people, but we studied it for O Level. This is usually guaranteed to kill any liking of a book, but if anything it made me love it even more. It's my favourite book of all time.

Someone Like You - Roald Dahl is famous for his children's stories, but his shorter ones for adults are much darker and have a twist in the tale. As a student I used to go down the pub for the 'last hour' with my friends and then we'd go back to hall and read these stories to each other into the wee small hours.

Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain's personal account of the futility of war, a lost generation and a changing world. I'm reading an anthology of WWI war poems at the moment, which in turn has led me back (after 30+ years) to this autobiographical tale told from a woman's perspective.

Year of Wonders - nearly 20 years of commuting to Bristol meant I read lots of books on the train. This is a delightful discovery I made by reading a few pages over the shoulder of someone sitting next to me (as you do). It's a story inspired by the plague village of Eyam and is much better than that sounds.

Books with a personal resonance

These are books with a strong sense of place or are a memoir with which I also have strong associations.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson's delightful debut novel set in York. NAH went to school there, so we often visit.

Cider with Rosie - beautifully written and a childhood memoir of the area of the Cotswolds my great grandmother came from, which is set at around the time she grew up there.

Poems on the Underground - when I worked in IT in the 80s and 90s, I often had to visit the company's London office. I hated going to London, so the discovery of new poems and authors on the posters across the underground network helped keep me sane.

The Hobbit - Sarehole Mill in Birmingham was Tolkien's inspiration for the Shire, and was a place I often visited with my friends who lived nearby.

The Rotters' Club - set at the time I was growing up in the 70s with characters who lived in the same area of Birmingham as I did. Key events like the Birmingham pub bombings and the industrial strife at British Leyland formed the background to my childhood as well as the book's. The main characters also attended schools in the same foundation as mine, so the portrayal of school life is very familiar.

Books with a personal involvement

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - the first spontaneous telephone call my niece ever made to us was to discuss the plot of this book and how much she loved Harry Potter. A very special moment.

Lakes, Rivers, Streams & Ponds of Britain & North-West Europe - this is the most thumbed book on my shelves. It has helped me teach the importance of invertebrates as indicators of water quality to dozens of OU students, volunteer water monitors here in Wiltshire, teachers across the UK, plus Spanish and African scientists. It also reminds me of one of the best years of my life - studying for my masters in freshwater biology at Cardiff university.

Around Darlington in Old Photographs - NAH's mother was a local historian with 13 books to her name, which are neatly lined up on our bookshelves. This particular volume includes NAH and me in the dedication :)

Phew, that's it! You may like to see what everyone else has come up with. There's a diversity of great books for you to choose from, if you're looking for something new to read...

• Anna - My Favourite Books Part One
• Arabella Sock - Behind the Scenes at the Library Part One (with Part 2 to follow)
• Lazy Trollop - 20 Books
• Patient Gardener - My Top 20 Reads
• Pianolearner - 20 Books
• The Clockwork Dodo - Favourite Books - My Top 20

Do join in with your own list if you want to, let me know where it is in the Comments below and I'll add yours to the links above.

Those of you wishing for something more gardeny, might like to look at Emma Cooper's Plant Nutter's Book Club. The discussion of the first book is happening now and the reading of the second nominated book (details also in that link) starts on March 1st.

The image is a modified version of this image available in WikiMedia Commons.