My top 5 favourite books of all time

 The other day I was thinking about a plan we had to sell our house and live on a narrowboat. It was a great idea, a big part of me would love to do it, and downsizing wouldn’t be a major problem; when it comes to possessions I’m not that attached. Except...well of course there is the book collection and with something in the region of 800+ books (I’m still cataloguing) clearly any move to a narrowboat would result in a severe slimming down of the collection. Either that or we’d need 2 boats – one for us and one for the books.

So it got me to thinking, if I really had to distil my collection down to the absolute favourites, the books from which I could not bear to be parted. And I’ve racked my brains, and weighed and measured and examined the pros and cons and listened to the innermost workings of my heart and here, with some trepidation, is my list of the top 5 books I couldn’t bear to live without.  

In no particular order (goodness, selection was hard enough. Ordering? Impossible):

Grendel by John Gardner

Grendel was recommended to me by a particularly literary friend. Not being familiar with the Beowulf story, the name was not immediately known to me but, in the end, it didn’t need to be. Grendel is a lushly written re-imagining of the Beowulf story, told from the perspective of the monster which Beowulf kills to cement his hero status. Here we find the ‘villain’ coming to terms with his role, his ugliness, his hatedness, his realisation of the power of words in spinning a role for us all. That in order for there to be heroes, there must first be villains. I wouldn’t like to give away too much about this one, but I think it’s close to the most perfect book ever written. Beautiful and diamond sharp. Poetic. Magical.

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter

I discovered the work of Angela Carter by accident. I was studying English Literature at Sixth Form College and one day we had a trainee teacher and she got us to study an extract of a story about a female vampire. It was gothic and atmospheric. Dense and richly written. A few weeks later I tracked it down in a short story collection by Carter and there followed a life-long love affair with the faded decadence of Angela Carter’s writing. And in particular The Magic Toyshop. Perhaps I was just the right age to pick up this short, coming of age story of the pampered Melanie, brought to poverty by the death of her parents and sent to live with an unknown uncle, the sinister Philip, and his Magic Toyshop. And Philip’s wife, Aunt Maggie and Francie and the dirty, degraded, sullen and somehow most marvellous of all, Finn.

As with all of Carter’s work, there’s a sinister undertone, an enveloping sensuousness, almost like a discovered velvet chair, dust laden, languishing past its prime in a second hand shop. Beauty beneath the degradation. A stunning tale of a girl’s growing up, first love and, perhaps, a first connection with the realities, pain and joy, of human life.

Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom

Another chance find, and another real beauty. Aside from the prologue and epilogue (which to this day I still don’t quite understand) this is a shot of ecstatic self-discovery told through two disparate but linked tales. The first tale follows a German-Brazilian girl who, prone to fits of black moods, drives one day into a rough part of town and ends up being gang raped. Following the attack she and a friend decide to go to Australia, a place they had both longed to visit, and whilst she is there she has an affair with an aboriginal man, becomes an angel and discovers how to live with herself in peace.

The second tale is that of a man, a journalist who writes book reviews, who is suffering from a mid-life slump. His girlfriend sends him to a private sanatorium to recover himself and, whilst there, he revisits in his mind his own trip to Australia and the source of his discontentment.

The first time I read Lost Paradise I found myself in a state of near ecstasy that lasted three days. Then I read it again. And again. A sparsely written but amazingly effective little book that will stay with me for all time.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Or did I mean The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet? Or Ghostwritten? Or Number9Dream? Oh, with Mr Mitchell it’s so hard to choose but if limited to one, to only one, it would have to be this, the sweeping, time travelling, interlinked story Cloud Atlas. With a dizzying range of styles and a skill which is almost inhuman and therefore cruel, Cloud Atlas is the book that convinces me, always, that I’m never going to be a writer. Because who can measure up to that? It’s an historical drama, a detective thriller, science fiction, futuristic dystopia, post apocalyptic western and gosh-darned clever all the way through. Whatever you like to read, this book has got it.

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper

Is it cheating to choose 5 books as one item? Oh well, consider me a cheat then. I first read Greenwitch as a teenager and then, in no particular order, The Grey King (still my favourite, if I had to pick one), The Dark is Rising, Under Sea Under Stone, Silver on the Tree. It’s a story for young adults, but great for adult readers nonetheless. Drawing on Arthurian legend and British folklore (or primarily English and Welsh anyway) it also carries all the hallmarks of a good fantasy novel and a classic childhood adventure story. There’s mystery, magic, lots of darkness, sinister forces, heroic children, adventure and running like a current through it all this timeless wisdom that makes it more than a mere child’s book. I re-read The Dark is Rising a couple of Christmases ago and resolved to read it ever year. Don’t be put off by that dreadful movie adaptation (The Seeker – honestly, I nearly cried), it doesn’t come close to doing anything resembling ‘justice’ (though shooting whoever made it might...only kidding). A great, entertaining read for readers of all ages.

 So, what would you choose?

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

In my quest to discover the best female writers it occurred to me that I’d never read anything by the Grand Dame of crime, Agatha Christie. Why is this? Perhaps Christie’s popularity had steered me away (sudden realisation of terrible book snobbery: popular = not very good. Bad me) or perhaps the sheer familiarity with Christie’s most well known characters (fondness for Margaret Rutherford’s Miss Marple, and David Suchet’s / Peter Ustinov’s Poirot. And who hasn’t seen Murder on the Orient Express?) led me to conclude that there was nothing to discover in Christie. Wrong indeed.

Anxious to correct my error, I set about doing a bit of research. The last thing I want to do is read a ‘bad’ Christie. Because anyone who’s credited as being the best selling novelist of all time (Guinness Book of Records), with 66 novels and 12 short story collections to her name (and that’s just the detective fiction) is bound to have written something bad or at the very least not so good. A bit of research led me to The Crooked House which instantly appealed both because of the excellent reviews, and because it features neither the familiar Miss Marple nor Poirot.

First published in 1949 The Crooked House is something of a lightweight novel, weighing in at an easy 160 pages. The story follows the death of Aristide Leonides, a rich, aged Greek patriarch who lives in a ‘crooked house’ with his extended family. Leonides is poisoned when his insulin is substituted for his serine eye drops and injected to him by his wife. Initial suspicions of an unfortunate accident are soon dismissed and the murder enquiry begins. The story is told through the eyes of Charles, son of the Chief of Police and fiancé to Sophia Leonides, granddaughter of Aristide Leonides. Charles needs to help solve the murder so that Sophia can be free to marry him.

Initial suspicion falls on Leonides's young wife, Brenda, who is suspected of having an affair with Lawrence Brown, a tutor engaged for Leonides’s grandchildren. The family are united against Brenda, seemingly certain (and at the same time uncertain) of Brenda’s guilt. And yet each of the Leonides is, as Sophia says, “ruthless in their own way” and each has a motive for murder. I won’t spoil the story, but it’s safe to say that no one is quite what they seem, no one is beyond suspicion and the killer is the last person you’d suspect...or is it?

Christie is certainly an entertaining writer; the story has a lightness and ease about it which, despite being over 60 years old, doesn’t feel particularly dated or awkward. The pace of the story flows just nicely and the characters, with the exception of Charles and Sophia perhaps, are well drawn and believable. With hindsight and careful reading, the identity of the murderer is identifiable and scenes which might have otherwise seemed frivolous are littered with clever little clues. The Crooked House is certainly an engaging read, the story carried me along and I found the 160 pages swallowed down in a couple of days. It was difficult not to skip to the end to find out ‘whodunnit’.

If I had any criticism of the book it would centre around the two characters of Charles and Sophia. Charles in particular, as a main character to the story, is something of a foogy, insubstantial character. Even the alleged ‘love’ he feels for Sophia is muted and unemotional and it lends an unbelievable tone to an otherwise character rich story. Equally Sophia, who plays such a key part to the story, is sparsely drawn to the point that she comes to feel somewhat unimportant. Had Christie brought into question Sophia’s involvement in the murder this could have introduced a degree of conflict to the Charles character that would have drawn him out more concretely. As it was the conflict arose around the detection only and it felt like something of a missed opportunity.

That being said, it was still an immensely enjoyable read. Not ‘great’ fiction (no Dostoevsky that’s for sure) but fun, clever, entertaining and easy to read. A great introduction to Agatha Christie’s impressive catalogue of works. I’ll be reading more.

The Crooked House scores a brilliant 8 Biis.