Don't take too long to think about it.
List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what books you choose:
1. S. Rushdie, Midnight's children
The first really adult book I read and loved. I reread it a few years ago and while it was diminished over time, it's still a great novel.
2. L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
I reread this recently too, but found it enhanced. F.R. Leavis called Tolstoy 'transcendentally great.' This is why.
3. G. Elliot, Middlemarch
Another monster, but a magisterial anatomisation of life
4. J.M. Coetzee, The Life and Times of Michael K
Spare and simple, but enourmously powerful. Probably the best modern book I have read in ages
5. J. Gillingham, Richard I
A great retrieval of Richard I from the assaults of the revisionists, pugnaciously and logically argued. For me, it was the defining book of my historical approach, helped by the fact I probably read it at the turning point of my degree
6. H. Chadwick, The Early church
A slight volume, but perfectly formed, which as well as being lucid and comprehensive, gave me an enduring interest in the early church
7. The Bible
Which leads me here. I resent having to put this down, as I don't exactly read it for pleasure, but it is lodged both in the fabric of society as well as my own personal worldview
8. J.J. Rousseau, The Social contract
As is this. I don't agree with it (or not all of it), but it's hugely influential, well argued and - I was delighted to discover when I got round to reading Rawls - still a powerful engine in modern political theory
9. J.J. Norwich, Byzantium (the trilogy)
Modernity - or at least the Byzantine establishment - has been less kind to this, but it's a great book / trilogy. It's wrong on a lot of the detail and lacks sophistication, but it rattles along, and it made me be a Byzantinist.
10. P.L. Fermor, Mani
This on the other hand made me want to read travel literature. PLF's books are generally brilliant, but this is exceptional, being also both travelogue and the capture of a vanishing society at a point before transition. I think it's his defining work
11. G. Grass, The Tin Drum
As is this. It's magical (in both senses) and fizzes with energy and invention in confronting the Nazi era. It's also a fantastic read.
12. A. Trollope, Barchester Towers
Really this should be the whole sequence, but this is the best, and, well, it's Trollope.
13. L.Durrell, The Alexadnria Quartet
I edited this from Lolita, which, though brilliant (and the first half is simply the best passage of writing I have read in fiction) but this is more significant for me - evocative and cleverly done, even if it does get a little silly towards the end
14. G. Greene, Monsignor Quixote
Simply charming, and funny, and the best exposition of the Trinity that I have ever read (with jokes).
15. H.U. Von Balthasar, Dare we hope that all may be saved? (with a short discourse on hell)
Fewer jokes, but I believe this. And the coda to the title is ace.
