Facebook – General
What is your favourite book and why? What I read depends on my mood when I’m reading so I can’t possibly have one overall favourite. I’ve chosen below one from each major character when an author has several in their canon. A good way of squeezing more books in!
I’ve also deliberately chosen books from deceased authors. I love a wide range of contemporary writers too but thought for this post I’d take a look back at some of the books that have developed my love of reading (and ad a result my love for writing too).
Historical Fiction – The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Agatha Christie Novel – Murder on the Orient Express (Poirot)/The Secret Adversary (Tommy and Tuppence)/Nemesis (Miss Marple).
Terry Pratchett Discworld Series – Men At Arms (Vimes Series)/ Raising Steam (Moist von Lipvig)/Maskerade (Witches series)/Reaper Man (Death series)/Interesting Times (Rincewind/Wizards series).
P.G. Wodehouse – The Code of the Woosters (Jeeves and Wooster)/Heavy Weather (Blandings)/Uncle Fred in the Springtime (Uncle Fred)/Cocktail Time (for its send-up of what banning a book achieves – as relevant now as when PGW wrote it!).
“Letters” books – PGW’s “A Life in Letters” is a fantastic read. Also love the Evelyn Waugh letters. Kenneth Williams wrote some great letters too.
“Diaries” books – Kenneth Williams’ one is very sad in places but is also brutally honest. Such a shame he underestimated his skills in comedy and I don’t think truly realised how loved he was, especially for his Just a Minute appearances.
Playwright – Shakespeare, naturally.
Charles Dickens Novel – A Christmas Carol
Jane Austen Novel – Pride and Prejudice
Poem/Hymn – the words to Abide With Me (and I also love If by Rudyard Kipling).
Children’s Series – The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
So what would you choose?
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
The best way of showing people what flash fiction is? Read some tales to them! Great way also to improve public reading skills. Lovely thing with reading flash fiction out loud is, by its nature, it doesn’t take long and so people are more inclined to listen! It is my fervent hope that those who won’t read or feel they don’t have time to will discover flash fiction as it is a form that gives bite-sized reads for those in a hurry! (From my point of view as a writer, it keeps people reading, I hope).
My own love of reading (and as a result of that for writing too) came directly from being read to as a child. I then went on to read my own choice of books (such freedom to choose what I wanted! I love my late mother’s collection but show me a decent bookshop and I can spend hours in there if allowed to do so. Note to self: Don’t spend too long at Foyles at Waterloo or you will miss the train home from the Bridge House/Cafelit/Chapeltown event next weekend!).
Allison Symes: Collected Works 