My new Desert Island Library – 100 Books

I’ve had a tab entitled ‘Desert Island LIbrary‘ on this blog for ages, in which I imagined if I were stranded on a desert island, which books I’d like washed up onto the shore in a waterproof trunk!  I started off writing short takes on the books to go into this trunk – but it sort of petered out.

Then at the weekend Paula at Book Jotter  was inspired by a story she’d read in another book about books of how a chap pared his huge library down to just 100 books. Paula has taken this idea to create a virtual library of the100 books she’d choose to keep. Read about Paula’s list here.  Paula has invited us to have a go, and who am I to resist this challenge?  Indeed, I am going to make my 100 books into my new Desert Island Library…

The rules are as follows:
a) You may add up to 100 books (fiction or non-fiction) to your figmental collection.
b) Titles may be added or removed at any point, but the number of individual books on your virtual shelf must never exceed 100, i.e. one in, one out. Alternatively, you may set the size of your library at (for instance) 50 or 30. The choice is entirely your own.
c) You can include an author’s collected works (or a series) on your shelf provided it has at some point genuinely been published in a single volume.
d) This isn’t meant to be a list of great titles or the most highbrow books you have read. Indeed, your choices don’t have to be particularly well-known. Please include only published works (it doesn’t matter if they are out of print) that have been significant to you in some way during your life. Books holding your most powerful memories.
e) Please include a link back to Paula’s post.

Here are my 100…  (with links to reviews where available)

1. 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster 
2. All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills
3. An awfully big adventure by Beryl Bainbridge  (1st of 3)
4. Beowulf by Seamus Heaney – in the side by side version
5. Beryl Bainbridge: Artist, Writer, Friend by Psiche Hughes (a super biography full of Beryl’s own art)
6. Blindness by Jose Saramago
7. Blood Red, Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick
8. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin – memoir
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable – my one indispensible reference book
11. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
12. Complete works by William Shakespeare,
13. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
14. Diaries 1969-1970: The Python Years by Michael Palin – memoir/diaries
15. Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon – one of the ‘romans durs‘
16. Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak – SF/Psych horror!
17. Double Indemnity by James M Cain – Perfect noir
18. Fiesta: The sun also rises by Ernest Hemingway, Ernest
19. Flowers for Algernon by Keyes, Daniel
20. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
21. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, Patrick
22. Harvest by Jim Crace
23. Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd
24. Here lies Arthur by Philip Reeve – Arthurian YA with a twist
25. High fidelity by Nick Hornby
26. I Claudius & Claudius the God (omnibus) by Robert Graves
27. In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor
28. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
29. Let the Right One in by John Ajvide Lindqvist – modern vampires!
30. Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt
31. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
32. Magda by Meike Ziervogel – Mrs Goebbels
33. Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr – my fave children’s book ever!
34. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day by Winifred Watson, Winifred
35. Moby Dick by Herman Melville – earns its place as the greatest influencer
36. Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
37. Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell
38. My Policeman by Bethan Roberts
39. Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro
40. No minor chords by Andre Previn – a delightful Hollywood memoir
41. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
42. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
43. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious,
44. Remarkable creatures byTracy Chevalier
45. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records & the Sixties by Ian MacDonald
46. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
47. Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey – Yee Haw!
48. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
49. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow – Werewolves in plain verse
50. Slow Horses by Mick Herron – 1st in the best spy series
51. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
52. Sweet William by Beryl Bainbridge
53. Tender is the night by F Scott Fitzgerald
54. Tepper isn’t going out by Calvin Trillin,
55. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
56. The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark
57. ,The Barrytown Trilogy (for The Van) by Roddy Doyle
58. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
59. The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge, Beryl
60. The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin
61. The CrowRoad by Iain Banks (1st of 3)
62. The Darling Buds of May by HE Bates – Perfick!
63. The Death of Grass by John Christopher, John
64. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
65. The Explorer by James Smythe (Book group hated it, I loved it)
66. The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
67. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by GW Dahlquist – bonkers!
68. The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervun Peake
69. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
70. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Omnibus edition) by Douglas Adams
71. The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sheriff
72. The House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
73. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson – super-noir!
74. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers – SF shouldn’t be this much fun!
75. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
76. The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
77. The master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
78. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster – in my top few books.
79. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
80. The Player of Games  by Iain (M) Banks
81. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
82. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
83. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
84. The sacred art of stealing  by Christopher Brookmyre
85. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole age 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
86. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
87. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
88. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
89. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
90. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
91. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks – one of the best debuts ever.
92. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
93. Tin Man by Sarah Winman – very moving
94. To the Ends of the Earth (trilogy) by William Golding
95. To Throw away unopened by Viv Albertine – best memoir of 2018, so angry, so brilliant
96. True Grit by Charles Portis
97. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin,
98. We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson
99. Why be happy when you could be normal? by Jeanette Winterson  – memoir
100. Winter’s bone by Daniel Woodrell

I’ve included some memoirs, a little poetry even, and my one indispensable reference book alongside the mixture of novels old and new, for young and older.  It didn’t take long to make my list – I sorted my master spreadsheet by score to bring all the 10/10 books to the top, then mainly picked from there, adding and deleting as I went.  Like Paula – I’m going to keep this one current back up at my Desert Island Books page.