This is probably about 25% of my ‘library’

I need help, input, from avid readers. I am trying another book, on longevity, old age, coping with it, and the thorny problem of memory, people who never read, or cannot or will not remember. So I have listed my favourites, some authors almost all their output, read over and over again. With Google I have a bad habit. Start a good book, curious about the author, look him/her up, don’t like them, racist, sexist, any ‘ist’ you know, then I stop reading the book. How stupid can you get?

So: Do you persevere, even if the first twenty pages do not ‘grab’ you? Do you re-read old favourites because they are ‘comfortable’? Do you buy the latest book of an author because you liked the last one, then find it is a pot-boiler? Do you read a book AFTER the adaption on TV? Had you ever heard of the author before? A good example is Thackeray, a ‘solid’ author. His ‘Vanity Fair’ actually prompted the magazine. I read an excellent book by an American ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’. The TV adaption was fantastic, confirmed my view that Becky Sharpe was the wickedest woman in fiction.

I have a dreadful confession; I have never been a fan of Shakespeare and Dickens, written word, film or TV adaptation. Taken by school to see Sir Laurence Olivier in Henry V (one of the Henries). Did ‘Coriolanus’ for ‘A’ level English, most difficult of all the plays. I did ‘A’ level English, French, Italian and Spanish, loathed all the set books, in fact ceremonially burned book of Spanish poetry. Have books you have been forced to read for exams set you against the authors for life? Do TV adaptations make you think the author must be turning in his/her grave? I think Jane Austen would have adored Alison Steadman’s Mrs Bennett. The ITV adaption of the Forsyte Saga was awful, moved so far from the book, whilst the BBC one so good that priests had to change the time of evensong because it clashed with the TV, and there were no repeats.

In my house clearance I had put all green Penguins (detective fiction) in a box for pulping. Apparently they are a ‘cult’, snatched up by a grandson and are now on bookshelves in Windsor.

So, what have I lost? All my Galsworthy, he wrote more than the Forsyte Saga. Neville Shute, A Town like Alice, On the Beach. Nicolas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea, The Nylon Pirates, Richer than all his tribe (horribly current). Dorothy Sayers – absolutely brilliant in all she wrote. Jilly Cooper, ignoring the explicit sex which seems obligatory her books are a good romp and always well researched Appassionato and Pandora in particular. John Grisham (feeds my dislike of the US). Alan Coren, brilliant humour. Agatha Christie, yes of course, but Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and Miss Marple (Joan?) are now more memorable. So, over to you and your favourites. 

The Gardener

A Moodscope member