Reading – 5 of the best books I’ve read.

As with my music I love a wide range of genres and styles for different reasons. I like books that are informative or illustrative, that are thought-provoking, humorous, interesting, with good characterisation and plots or quirky ideas. I like books that are well written. I like books with substance.

It’s difficult choosing the best books because in different moods those choices would be different.

It is also difficult when you have read books over a span of decades. You are comparing a book read thirty years ago with one read yesterday. Rereading a cherished book sometimes makes you aware that they no longer seem as good as they did when you were eighteen.

However I thought it would be interesting to share some of my favourites with you.

Ken Kesey – One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

As with most film interpretations the film was good but not a patch on the book. The book was written from inside the head of the inmate Chief Broom. Murphy was merely a character. In the film it centred on Murphy. It was a unique perspective that enabled a lot of interesting interactions and characterisation.

John Fowles – The Magus

This book really captured the feel of the Greek Island and played with your head. The plot sucked you in and at times you were pulled back and forth. A very cerebral book that left you not quite knowing what was real. Brilliant.

Haruki Murakami – Norwegia Wood

All Murakami’s books have a strange style that creates an unreality in which emotions are different. There is a surreal quality to them and they are very readable.

Gerorge Orwell – 1984

A book written in 1948 which still holds for today in this world of establishment control where the enemy keeps changing, we are exhorted to public condemnation by the media and controlled with double speak. It’s not as austere and blatant but I think we are living in Orwell’s dystopia. The establishment directs us.

Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory

This was the first novel by the late great Iain Banks. It is macabre and elaborate. He can certainly tell a tale. A great read.

As a writer I am greatly influenced by the writers I read and hugely impressed by the mastery they have of their skills. I am in awe of them. They paint with words and open up other worlds to me. I am never happier than when I’m engrossed in a good book (except when I’m writing myself).