Here is a list of some of my top novels – all available in paperback or kindle and some in Hardback):
| Reflections from a Ditch Your life passes before your eyes | Sex, death, awe, wonder, fury, birth, life, beauty, politics, religion, anger, nature, love, questions, stories and thoughts are all words. I had to rearrange their meanings. You live your life and then you die. You start a journey that will not end as you expect. From a childhood spent in ditches to a lonesome wait in a ditch. You think you understand. You have relationships with people, animals, possessions and places but you can only guess at the other side. You are aware. You have a moral code you live by. You see how good things could be and, when you wear your Sunday best, you do your bit to make it happen. Your life is measured in seconds but how much of it has significance? You laugh and enjoy. You think and wonder. You create and destroy. Sometimes you are fulfilled and often you are frustrated; most of the time you are simply bored or engaged in the mundane. The things that stand out are oases in a desert of forgotten ordinariness. This is a story of a crash. | Reflections from a ditch: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781500836498: Books |
| 53 and Imploding Inside a head | This is the story of what goes on in one man’s head; an antinovel in which the mosaic of thoughts, ideas and interactions with friends, colleagues and life build into a picture of a life in crisis. An aging rebel finds himself increasing isolated and craving for a dream that is fading and a promise that never materialised. The compromise of life has created dissatisfaction. He feels split in two with no real identity. He sits at his computer and tries to make sense of the world and his life with its mundanity, highs and lows. This book is an alternative elegy to a disturbing world. | 53 and imploding: Amazon.co.uk: goodwin, opher: 9781512343014: Books |
| Father From the Sun An homage. An investigation of values. | A mosaic of a novel, a memoir, an homage. My father was born in 1922. I was born in 1949. We have different values, different lives and ideas. How far apart are we? How much light did he shed? What are our legacies? This tells the story. | Farther from the Sun: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798680607763: Books |
| Bodies in a Window Perspectives on life and death | Looking out through that window, standing beside death, peering at the world outside, it struck me that we were all stranded within the parameters of our own narrow lives – the fashions and attitudes of our youth and old age. We were victims of our times and ourselves. There was no such thing as individuality and freedom. It was an illusion. All life ran its course and ended in scenes like this. We were all trapped within the limitations of our days. Outside that window was another world. There were all manner of things happening. It was a panoply of everything you could imagine – rich and eventful. Life went on. It was only in here that it had stopped. In here everything had changed. All values and endeavours had been rendered meaningless. | Bodies in a Window: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781986269544: Books |
| Danny’s Story The story of the people in a house in the sixties | This is Danny’s story and how he stumbled upon a place to live and friendships that saved his life. This is the story of a house that became a home. It is the story of an assortment of desperate people who were all lost and some became found. It is a real story of how people who are worthless and have no respect for themselves came to form a community. It is a story that tells us that there is a reason for everything; that chance works in strange ways and that often salvation appears out of the strangest circumstance. This is the story of Danny Champion. | Danny’s Story: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781533487216: Books |
| Goofin’ With the Cosmic Freaks A sixties novel | This is the ultimate sixties book – an ‘On the Road’ for the British Underground with all its sex, drugs, dreams and music; those times of crazy people high on life and mad for experience – when anything was possible. It captures that idealistic naïve impossibility permeated with vitality and careering love and dreams, the wild rush for adventure without a thought for the future because it was going to last forever. – Seemingly forever changes! It spans continents as it trips its way through time, space and mind in a mad rush to discover life and experience or die trying. Now was all there was and it had to burn, burn, burn or it was dead. In the days of dope and poetry, where the world was ripe for changing, there was a mystical buzz of unity. In the shadow of an establishment that stood for war, prejudice, work, isolation and the rat-race with all it’s status seeking power games, racism and slow death signified by getting the lines straight on your lawn, Jack’s cackling laughter and bright eyes, death-defying madness and care-free attitude showed there was an alternative. Maybe dope was never enough and when we grow up it is time to put aside childish things where they are confined to our dreams and memories. But somewhere out there Jack still lives where it is real. We did change the world! | Goofin’ with the Cosmic Freaks: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781500860240: Books |
Thank you for looking. Why not try one or two? And please leave a review! Cheers Opher