Book baton

Following the musical baton in May, sil has passed me a book baton. This is apparently a meme.

Books owned: Roughly 1000, shared with my wife but not including our two year old son’s.

Last book purchased: Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard and Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser, both from a charity shop in Biggleswade. Almost all book purchases come from charity shops.

Book reading right now: Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard. I loved the film for this book and I’ve been wanting to read a J.G. Ballard book for ages.

Books that mean a lot to me:

    Brewer’s dictionary of phrase and fable. This is my desert island book without question, stuffed as it is with old-fashioned odd shit and erudition. The cross references lead you pleasantly astray which makes it useless as a reference book but they can pass the time admirably. My inability to remember bald facts means there is always something new to read and learn.
    Rubicon by Tom Holland. About the fall of the Roman Republic: Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Cicero, etc., etc. It covers the fascinating bits of a classical education I wish I’d had. I very rarely read books twice as it is, but this one I read twice in a matter of a few months and I could quite happily read it again tomorrow. It is a scholarly history but written as a human narrative: this is what academic historical research should ultimately aim to produce.
    Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. My wife often buys books which she thinks I might like but which I would probably not think of reading. Rebecca was one of these and I didn’t think it would be up to much on reputation, but it blew me away. This occasionally happens and I think X is the best novel ever until I read Y, but I think this one is quite hard to beat.
    Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. Despite his humiliating and pompous appearances on breakfast telly and his recent crappy form, Mr Forsyth is a cracking author and the first time I read this blew me away (see above). I used to read to get to sleep at university, which generally worked; it didn’t with Day of the Jackal. I’d even seen the film so kind of knew what happened but was still gripped.

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton: With the same rationale as last time, the same list: