Today, 3rd March 2022, is World Book Day. And this year the institution is 25 years old!
I decided to list 25 titles, in no particular order, other than that in which they occurred to me. I’ll not say much about each book, but instead just post a cover pic (where I can of the edition I first owned/read), and a few words.
So, here goes.
The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien.
‘Epic and homely’. Damn right! I read this numerous times in my childhood, and absolutely loved it. If I’m honest, the growing legacy of the Peter Jackson movie franchise is kind of spoiling it all for me now.
The Hobbit, Tolkien.
Before I read the LOTR I read the more kiddie friendly The Hobbit. Equally enchanting, if more modest in scale.
1812 Trilogy, Paul Britten Austen.
This historical trilogy, a tapestry of interwoven first-hand accounts, condensed into a single volume with Bible-thin pages, was an incredibly exhilarating read.
Picasso, The Early Years, 1881-1907, Josep Palau i Fabre.
This was my first ‘plush art book’. I was somewhere around 16-18 yrs old at the time. Massive, and massively inspiring. (The book, not me!) I mean no disrespect to the author, but for me it’s all about the pictures, not the text.
Picasso, Cubism, 1907-1917, Josep Palau i Fabre.
Many moons after buying i Fabre’s first voluminous work, I got the second. This time with the slip-case! And it’s equally flabbergasting in terms of Picasso’s Krakatoan artistic powers.
Michelangelo, Complete Works, Zoller et al.
This is both the biggest and most expensive art book I’ve ever bought. But that kind of befits the Titan that was Michelangelo. World Book Day is primarily about reading, one supposes. And with my art entries to this list of books, it’s all about the pictures. But hey, picture books have their place!
1812, Adam Zamoyski.
Another 1812 themed book? And it’s not the last on this list. This was a cracking good read. Not at all like Paul Britten Austin’s ‘word film’, this more trad’ history nonetheless crackled.
Barbarossa, Alan Clark.
‘An unimaginable harvest of sorrow’ sayeth Alan Clark. Aye, and a rollicking good read. An oldie, but a goodie. Now, with Putin invading Ukraine, it all seems frighteningly close or familiar…
The Town & the City, Kerouac.
A fantastic book. The descriptions of the everyday minutiae of life are spellbindingly rhapsodic and beautiful, in a very real, humble and down to earth way.
Doctor Sax, Kerouac.
One of my favourites by the sad-eyed Dharma Bum. Very evocative of childhood, tinged with the saudade of looking back whilst growing older, like much Kerouac.
Arms & Uniforms, Napoleonic Wars Vols I & II, L & F Funcken.
In terms of the pleasures a book can give, the two Napoleonic volumes of the Arms And Uniforms series, by the prolific Frenchies Liliane et Fred Funcken, rank very highly with me. As a kid they had me totally mesmerised!
I learned much later that L and F Funcken worked quite a lot with/for Hergé. It’s nice to discover such connections!
The Calculus Affair, Hergê.
From arty picture books to kid’s ones. I love almost all the Tintin adventures. The best are a sublime mix of fabulously evocative art with simple but stirring storytelling
Destination Moon, Hergé.
Bizarrely I had Explorers On The Moon years before I got and read the first part of this fab two-part adventure, Destination Moon. Once I got the latter, it quickly became a favourite.
Oh, and, by and large, I much prefer the texts in Hergé’s adventures – brilliantly rendered into English by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper*, and Michael Turner – to the cloudy verbosity of most art history/criticism.
* She died Dec 12, 2021, aged 97!
A Bridge Too Far, Cornelius Ryan.
I got a copy of this book on a secondary school trip to Ely, when we visited the market. Ryan also wrote The Longest Day (which I haven’t read). Both were used as the basis for epic WWII movies. And both this book and the film based on it are integral to my childhood.
The Battle, Alessandro Barbero.
Whilst I don’t like the cover of this book (it’s the same edition I bought and read), it’s a very good read. And, what’s more, despite my dislike of the design the cover is very resonant for me; it was an Eagle Annual article on Sgt. Ewart’s capture of an Eagle (the echoes are accumulating!), as depicted on this very cover, that first introduced me to the titular epochal battle.
The Campaigns of Napoleon, David Chandler.
Anyone reading my list will detect certain themes: childhood nostalgia, Tolkien,Tintin, Kerouac, art books, and military history, with a emphasis on The Napoleonic Wars and WWII. This David Chandler trilogy on Boney’s battles was terrific. And the Folio edition – which is what I have – is beautiful.
Journal of the Waterloo Campaign, Cavalie Mercer.
Avoid the abridged Pen & Sword version of this like the plague! It’s littered with editorial errors. This full version, also from Pen & Sword, is incomparably better produced. And Mercer’s tale is ace.
It was very poignant and affecting to read whilst visiting Belgium and the Waterloo battlefields in 2015, on the 200th anniversary of those terrible few days. I even stood on the spot, where a memorial now stands, where Mercer’s artillery troop did their bloody business.
Shanghai 1937, Peter Harmsen.
For us in ‘The West’ we almost always think of WWII as 1939-45. Not so for Japan and China! They were already at it, hammer and tongs, in ‘37, as this truly excellent book relates.
Panzer Colours, (?).
Once again the criteria here is pleasure per square inch. And as a kid this was another military themed book that totally fascinated me. My dad and a lodger, Tim Seward (now an artist living and working in France!), made terrific 1/72 model tanks. This was part of their ref’ library.
On The Origin of Species, Darwin.
Around the 200th anniversary of his birth, and the 150th of the publication of this, his major work, I was reading quite a lot about Darwin and evolution, and related stuff.
I’ve tried to avoid ‘worthy’ titles, and choose those books I’ve enjoyed the most. But Darwin’s origins is, whilst sometimes a pleasure to read, and sometimes like swimming through molasses, just too important to the development of modern science and thought, and (one can hope/dream) the trajectory our culture might take, to be omitted.
Some might choose The Bible. An awful book, in my view. This is nearer to that point, for me.
War And Peace, Tolstoy.
Ok, another ‘worthy’ entry. Initially Tolstoy really got my goat, but as I read on, I began to enjoy this 1812 themed epic. By the time I finished it, I loved it. Flawed, like it’s hero, Pierre, and all humanity. But an epic masterpiece nevertheless.
The Virgin in the Ice, Ellis Peters.
So, from Darwin and Tolstoy to more pulpy pleasures. I first met Cadfael in audiobook form, whilst working with illustrator Tim Oliver. Thanks Tim! I’ve subsequently collected nearly all of Ellis Peters’ monkish mysteries. They are formulaic. But by gum, the formula’s a good ‘un!
Royal Flash, George MacDonald Fraser.
I have another pal to thank/blame for more furtive pulpy paperback pleasures. Thanks to Jeffers Mayo for this one! And, as with Cadfael, Flashman is such a charmer I went out and bought the whole series, and read ‘em all. Such fun!
Dharma Bums, Kerouac.
Pictured above is one of two editions of this book I’ve owned and read. I like this because it’s one of Jack’s more straight journalistic novels, and we find him as a mountain top fire lookout, and meet poet and fellow Dharma Bum Gary ‘Japhy Ryder’ Snyder…
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.
I laughed like a drain reading this. Often in public. And I occasionally worried folk might think me as unhinged as the gonzo lizards that populate this madcap book. Looking back on it all now, it’s a bittersweet chapter in my life and my reading. But the laughter got it on this list.
Okay, so there’s my 25 books. I found coming up with this list much harder than I’d an anticipated. Given how much I enjoy reading, and how much I’ve read over the years, I really struggled to think of what I’d enjoyed most!