My 12 Quake Books

There have been 12 really influencial books in my life:

1. The Magus by John Fowles.  I relate to it because Nicholas Urfe, the protagonist, became an English teacher abroad when he couldn’t think of anything else to do – just like me.   It’s essentially a lesson in learning to love and this is one of the most important lessons one can learn.
2. Voices of the Old Sea by Normal Lewis.  Three successive summers on the Spanish Costa Brava just before the tourist hordes invaded and changed everything. Written with panache and wit, this is perceptive personal experience.
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  A lovely story and her best book by far.  And yes, I do love a happy ending from time to time.  There are far too few of them in real life.
4. 1491 by Charles Mann.  A fascinating description of how humans populated the Americas, long before Columbus and the Vikings ever set sail.  A book everyone should read.
5. Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson.  A thriller like no other – detailed, brilliantly conceived and written.  A classic page-turner.
6. The Rock by John Masters.  Gibraltar, a unique place which I know well, described through the ages.
7. Mi Ultimo Suspiro (Memorias) by Luis Bunuel.  The life and work of one of my favourite filmmakers, told with wry cynicism.
8. No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan by Robert Shelton.  A superb biography of a modern poet.
9. The World Over: The Collected Stories by William Somerset Maugham. A 2-volume set that includes all of the 91 stories Maugham wished to see preserved. Outstanding, with debts to Chekhov and de Maupassant.
10. Fabled Shore: From the Pyrenees to Portugal by Rose Macaulay. A woman drives down the Spanish coast in 1949 by herself, noting the history, manners and topography in a characteristically elegant style.
11. The Victorians by Jeremy Paxman.  A comprehensive study of the Victorians, the people who made the modern world.
12. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.  An astonishing memoir of a drug-fuelled drive across the desert to Las Vegas.