10 Books I Have Loved Pt 1

Having posted about 10 things I love about my home..., I'm going to do a couple of posts about 10 Books I Have Loved. This first one will be about 10 works of fiction that I have really enjoyed. They're not necessarily my all time favourites, just books that were a thoroughly good read and worthy of their spot on our bookshelves.

I'll start with my first ever Ben Okri... I tried reading this on holiday in Turkey in 1992 and really couldn't be doing with it. Then after we'd been to Tanzania in 1998 I picked it up again and suddenly it made a lot of sense and a whole new world opened before me as one of the best storytellers ever told an amazing tale.

I think having lived in an under developed part of Africa it helped put the  themes of the book in to context and it really brought a level of understanding I was incapable of back in '91.

Rather than rank these books which would be nigh on impossible, I've preferred to leave them in the order that Blogger uploaded them for me.

The first Iain Banks novel I ever read and I loved the dark humour of it.


When Paula went off to uni I began reading a ton of classics to try and catch up with what she liked, Hardy has remained a favourite ever since.


We both adored Mitchell's debut novel and have been fans ever since, despite Hollywood's best efforts to ruin his books.


I said in Lockdown Reading Part 1 that "Louis de Bernières is quite possibly my favourite fiction writer and I have yet to find a book of his that didn't entertain me". I also said that "Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord is my favourite read by him", and I would stand by that.


What can you say about Amitav Ghosh other than he's a master of his craft, I've never been disappointed by any of his novels and I really loved this one.


A breathless trilogy that will leave you wanting more.


Really enjoyed the bleakness of the surroundings and the critique of '80s Britain.


This book really annoyed me to start with because it's written as a series of letters by Kevin's mum to his dad and you just want the dad to reply, until you realise why he doesn't. Just excellent if a little bleak.

Before the Duncton fame, Horwood wrote some epic stuff (check out The Stonor Eagles) with Skallagrigg being a truly superb book.  I had an argument with a lecturer at uni over this one. The BBC made a terrible film of it, but that didn't stop the lecturer giving over his session to discussing how brilliant the film was. I eventually piped up and told him he was talking rubbish to which he launched at me for being anti disabled people. I stopped him and asked if he'd read the book? He was crestfallen when he had to admit he hadn't. LOL!