My Favourites Shelf
In true Desert Island Discs style, I’d be unable to pick just one book off my shelves to “save from the waves” but if I was able to take an armful, these are some of the volumes that I would pick. Each of them is meaningful for me or reminds me of someone that I love. I tend to cluster these books on my favourites shelf so it would be an easy sweep to get them out of the door in event of an emergency.
My love of reading comes predominantly from my mother. Little Grey Men by BB was a childhood favourite of hers and pictured is her book that she’s given to me. Little Grey Men is the story of the last gnomes in Britain; Sneezewort, Dodder, Baldmoney and Cloudberry. When Cloudberry goes missing, the little gnomes take the monumental decision to venture down the Folly Brook to find him. BB is the pen name of Denys Watkins-Pitchford. Known for his writing about country sports, he is a beautiful nature writer who spent his childhood observing the countryside having been unable to go away to school because of illness. Little Grey Men won the Carnegie Medal in 1942 and its depiction of English hedgerows and pastures are a world away from England in the midst of World War II.
Just out of shot is my mother’s favourite book, Katherine by Anya Seton. First published in 1954, it tells the 14th Century love story of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Their love survives war, plague, separation and infidelity. I think it sparked a love of historical fiction first in my mother and then in me. The Count of Monte Cristo holds a special place in my heart because it was my bedtime book for many months when I was in primary school. A mighty tome (hence the many months at a chapter a night), this is the ultimate revenge story and I was there for it hook, line and sinker.
My grandfather gave me this copy of Lorna Doone, predominantly because it’s set where he grew up around the Somerset and Devon border. In the front of the book he has written a dedication to me in his spidery writing and it makes me wish that I could still hug him every time I see it. He wasn’t much of a one for great displays of affection, but we did share a love of Knickerbocker Glories (a fabulous ice cream sundae) and that was our thing, tracking down the biggest and the best of them! P.S. I’ll take Lorna over Tess any day of the week.
The Hobbit was the book that got me sent to the Headmaster’s Office for the first time. I was caught reading it under the table in a maths lesson and having ignored one warning, I was caught a second time. Not my fault that trolls were more interesting than times tables. Maths has remained my least favourite subject! A little later in my school career I came across Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. It was a case of right book, right time I think and this story of a middle-aged woman examining her tortuous teenage friendships has stayed with me ever since. I recently reread it and it was an odd experience identifying more with the middle-aged woman now than the teenage girl, but no less powerful.
“The world is being run by people my age, men my age, with falling-out hair and health worries, and it frightens me. When the leaders were older than me I could believe in their wisdom, I could believe they had transcended rage and malice and the need to be loved. Now I know better. I look at the faces in newspapers, in magazines, and wonder: what greeds, what furies drive them on?”
Finally in this little pile are the two penguin tribands. Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals makes me laugh without fail every time I pick it up. It also brings back memories of Corfu which is an important place for my husband, his family and by extension, me. The Secret History I think of as the book that got me back into reading. As a child I read voraciously, non-stop. It was my favourite thing to do and then in my twenties I stopped mainly because of study and work. I picked up The Secret History knowing very little about it, but I’ve always loved a Campus novel (I blame a childhood Mallory Towers obsession). I read it in six hours without stopping to eat which is highly irregular for me. And once I finished I started it again! It reminded me of the reader I always have been even when life took over at various points.
If you had to rescue just a handful of books from the waves which ones would they be? Comments are on below and I’d love to hear which books are special to you too.