I adore reading. I love writing. Unfortunately the writing takes longer than the reading and takes up more of my time. Since I retired four years ago I have only managed to read 165 books and write/rewrite 23.
I’ve been an avid reader all my life and started writing when I was twenty. I’ve written forty books so far. I am rewriting them to get them up to spec with a view to publishing them properly in the near future.
You can see from the variety that I read books for a variety of reasons. I have taken to re-reading some of my favourites. Some are just as good and some have dated. That’s life.
The greatest minds are at our disposal. The greatest thoughts, stories and fantasies are available. All I need is more time.
Books I have read since retiring Sept 2011
| 1.Just Kids | Patti Smith |
| 2. Wolf Hall | Hilary Mantel |
| 3. Norwegian Wood | Haruki Murakami |
| 4. Kafka on the Shore | Haruki Murakami |
| 5. Maggie Girl of the Streets | Stephen Crane |
| 6. Great Singers of the 2oth Century | David Spiller |
| 7. East of Eden | John Steinbeck |
| 8. God is not Great | Christopher Hitchins |
| 9. The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho |
| 10. Full Dark No Stars | Stephen King |
| 11. 3 Cups of Tea | Greg Mortenson & David Relin |
| 12. Birdie | Kurt Vonnegut |
| 13. 11.22.63 | Stephen King |
| 14. IQ84 – Book 1 | Haruki Murakami |
| 15. IQ84 – Book 2 | Haruki Murakami |
| 16. IQ84 – Book 3 | Haruki Murakami |
| 17. Good Man Jesus scoundrel Christ | Philip Pullman |
| 18. After dark | Haruki Murakami |
| 19. After the quake | Haruki Murakami |
| 20. Long walk to forever | Kurt Vonnegut |
| 21. The Optimist | Lawrence Shorter |
| 22. The Atheist’s Bible | Joan Konner |
| 23. The portable Atheist | Christopher Hitchins |
| 24. The vanishing elephant | Haruki Murakami |
| 25. Salmonella men on planet porno | Yasutaka Tsutsui |
| 26. The Chrysalids | John Wyndham |
| 27. Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad |
| 28. A long way down | Nick Hornby |
| 29. Blind willow, sleeping woman | Haruki Murakami |
| 30. My dear I wanted to tell you | Louisa Young |
| 31. Grimus | Salman Rushdie |
| 32. South of the border West of the sun | Haruki Murakami |
| 33. The Return | Victoria Hislop |
| 34. Stonemouth | Iain Banks |
| 35. The girl at the Lion D’Or | Sebastian Faulks |
| 36. The Long Song | Andrea Levy |
| 37. Underground | Haruki Murakami |
| 38. My Family and other animals | Gerald Durrell |
| 39. One Flew over the Cuckoos nest | Ken Kessey |
| 40. Hard boiled Wonderland and the end of the world | Haruki Murakami |
| 41. Red | Gary Neville |
| 42. The colour of Magic | Terry Pratchett |
| 43. The light fantastic | Terry Pratchett |
| 44. Dance Dance dance | Haruki Murakami |
| 45. Portnoy’s complaint | Philip Roth |
| 46. The lost Symbol | Dan Brown |
| 47. Guards Guards | Terry Pratchett |
| 48. What I talk about when I talk about running | Haruki Murakami |
| 49. A Maggot | John Fowles |
| 50. Who I am | Pete Townsend |
| 51. The story of Free & Bad Company | Steven Rosen |
| 52. Sputnik Sweetheart | Haruki Murakami |
| 53. Mr Stone and the knights companion | V S Naipal |
| 54. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot |
| 55. Mister God, I am Anna | Finn |
| 56. The Birthday book | Haruki Murakami |
| 57. A precocious autobiography | Yevgeny Yevtushenko |
| 58. The wind-up bird chronicles | Haruki Murakami |
| 59. Siddharta | Herman Hesse |
| 60. Hydrogen Sonatta | Iain M Banks |
| 61. The bonesetters daughter | Joy Tan |
| 62. Keep the Asphidistr flying | George Orwell |
| 63. Birds, animals and friends | Gerald Durrell |
| 64. Garden of the Gods | Gerald Durrell |
| 65. Andy Warhol Diaries | Andy Warhol |
| 66. First born | Arthur C Clarke |
| 67. Sweettooth | Ian McEwan |
| 68. Arguably | Christopher Hitchins |
| 69. Bring up the bodies | Hilary Mantell |
| 70. Equal Rites | Terry Pratchett |
| 71. Mort | Terry Pratchett |
| 72. Cutting for stone | Aham Verghese |
| 73. Sourcery | Terry Pratchett |
| 74. The particular sadness of lemon cake | Aimee Bender |
| 75. The dovekeepers | Alice Hoffman |
| 76. The Ginger Man | J P Donleavy |
| 77. The great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald |
| 78. Dharma bums | Jack Kerouac |
| 79. For whom the bell tolls | Ernest Hemmingway |
| 80. A wild sheep chase | Haruki Murakami |
| 81. Fug you | Ed Sanders |
| 82. A hat full of sky | Terry Pratchett |
| 83. Ring world | Larry Niven |
| 84. Wintersmith | Terry Pratchett |
| 85. The Quarry | Iain Banks |
| 86. Stoner | John Williams |
| 87. Blowing the Blues | Dick Heckstall-Smith |
| 88. The heart of things | A C Grayling |
| 89. Things the Grandchildren should know | Mark Oliver Everett |
| 90. Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck |
| 91. The Comfort of Strangers | Ian McEwan |
| 92. The Trial | Franz Kafka |
| 93. Tarantula | Bob Dylan |
| 94. Bound for glory | Woody Guthrie |
| 95. Flaubert’s parrot | Julian Barnes |
| 96. Talking it over | Julian Barnes |
| 97. Raw spirit | Iain Banks |
| 98. The favourite game | Leonard Cohen |
| 99. Beautiful losers | Leonard Cohen |
| 100. Corrections | Jonathan Frantzen |
| 101. The Stranger | Albert Camus |
| 102. The three Musketeers | Alexander Dumas |
| 103. After the flood | Margaret Atwood |
| 104. Hellraiser | Ginger Baker |
| 105. A Casual Vacancy | JK Rowling |
| 106. Wind through the Keyhole | Stephen King |
| 107. The Ragged Trousered Philantropists | Robert Tressell |
| 108. Maddadam | Margaret Atwood` |
| 109. Ringworld Engineers | Larry Niven |
| 110. The sense of an ending | Julian Barnes |
| 111. Ringworld children | Larry Niven |
| 112. Breakfast of champions | Kurt Vonnegut |
| 113. The blind assassin | Margaret Atwood |
| 114. The Midwich Cuckoos | John Wyndham |
| 115. The Rights of Man | Thomas Paine |
| 116. Wyrd Sisters | Terry Pratchett |
| 117. Juliet Naked | Nick Hornby |
| 118. Confessions of a crap artist | Philip K Dick |
| 119. Doctor Sleep | Stephen King |
| 120. White Rooms & imaginary Westerns | Pete Brown |
| 121. Moral disorder | Margaret Atwood |
| 122. The hare with amber eyes | Edmund de Waal |
| 123. Apocalypse | D H Lawrence |
| 124. The Cosmological eye | Henry Miller |
| 125. The last continent | Terry Pratchett |
| 126. Thud | Terry Pratchett |
| 127. A tale for the time being | Ruth Ozeki |
| 128. Survivor | Chum Mey |
| 129. Falling leaves | Adeline Yen Mah |
| 130. Catch 22 | Joseph Heller |
| 131. Go Now | Richard Hell |
| 132. Bluebeard’s egg | Margaret Atwood |
| 133. Life before man | Margaret Atwood |
| 134. Life after life | Kate Atkinson |
| 135. The Who & the story of Tommy | Nigel Cawthorne |
| 136. Mr Mercedes | Stephen King |
| 137. Umbrella | Will Self |
| 138. The Eyre Affair | Jasper Fforde |
| 139. The Children’s act | Ian McEwan |
| 140. The Magic of Reality | Richard Dawkins |
| 141. The Shack | Wm Paul Young |
| 142. The last interview | Kurt Vonnegutt |
| 143. Strong motion | Jonathan Franzen |
| 144. Soul Music | Terry Pratchett |
| 145. The sun also rises | Ernest Hemingway |
| 146. The Woman who died a lot | Jasper Fforde |
| 147. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki | Haruki Murakami |
| 148. On the Road – original scroll | Jack Kerouac |
| 149. Discomfort zone | Jonathan Frantzen |
| 150. The Establishment and how they get away with it | Owen Jones |
| 151. The Kill List | Frederick Forsythe |
| 152. The Song of the Quarkbeast | Jasper Fforde |
| 153. One of our Thursdays is missing | Jasper Fforde |
| 154. No Matter What | Sally Donovan |
| 155. The story of my heart | Richard Jefferies |
| 156. Time must have a stop | Aldous Huxley |
| 157. Immortal coils | Kurt Vonnegut |
| 158. Chavs | Owen Jones |
| 159. Revival | Stephen King |
| 160. In God I doubt | John Humphrys |
| 161. Phil Ochs Death of a rebel | Marc Elliott |
| 162. In Watermelon Sugar | Richard Brautigan |
| 163. Blues for Mr Charlie | James Baldwin |
| 164. Stone Mattress | Margaret Atwood |
| 165. |