Book List

What I am Reading Now is The Fortune of War, by Patrick O'Brian. Within the first 50 pages, our heroes have one ship sink under them, another shot out from under them, and are now held prisoner by the fledgling US of A. Phew. This is the sixth book in the series, and I'm already getting anxious that there are only 13 to go.

What Made Me Cry? Most recently, the pair of deaths at the end of The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman. I'm talking wailing aloud, rocking back and forth, tear-sodden face here. Really, really crying. Closely followed by the death of Jo the Crossing Sweeper in Bleak House.

The Book That Made Me Laugh most recently is the O'Brian - there's a dry chortle every couple of pages. The most laughing out loud has to be Tennyson's Gift by Lynne Truss. Funniest. Book. Ever. Closely followed by The Diary of a Provincial Lady. A blog by any other name . . .

I Raged at The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad. She lived with an Afghani family for a few months, and her account of the treatment of everyone not the male head of a household made me weep for the sheer bloody waste of human potential.

What Book Made Me Crap My Pants (I'm so sorry, I think that unfortunate phrase is mine . . .) has to be The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. For months I couldn't walk up any stairs for fear I would see Peter Quint looking down at me. Still makes me shudder. Miles was well out of it, I reckon.

The Most Impact On My Life would be The Road Less Travelled, by M. Scott Peck. It's the only self-help book I have ever read, and I only read it because the most astonishingly diverse range of people recommended it. The only thing I can remember from it, is his injunction not to lie. Never, ever. It's a betrayal of the soul. That's not to say I have never lied since, of course, I'm just very conscious of it when I do. And sometimes I turn not lying into a game (a not very honourable game) by saying something which will be taken to mean something else. Occasions for this might be how to phrase a response to a particularly hideous new baby, or a meal badly cooked by the Mother in Law.

What Book Ought I To Have Read, But Haven't? Boringly, I'd have to go with Ulysses, by James Joyce. For a graduate in English Literature, that's actually quite an admission. Here's something even more shocking - I don't feel even the slightest urge to make good the omission.

If Realdoc, Dave or Wyndham pass this way, I'd love to hear what they have to say.