Is it long, short? Did you read it at a time that was poignant? Is it a book about love that you read after a breakup? A book about an apocalyptic virus that you read last year?!! Or is it a favourite from childhood that still has you turning the pages and laughing, screaming, crying, in all the same places? Well, whatever it is - and speaking to the readers and writers I know, it seems that most of us do have a favourite, or at least a top five that's forever fluid because we just can't decide in which order to place them - I've decided to reread some of my favourites (Harry Potter excluded).
I'll need a bit of filler though because there's some big old tomes here - that copy of, The Stand in the picture, is one thousand four hundred and twenty pages, so I won't be going for volume (I read forty-one books last year so I'll be lucky to make half that this) but needs must.
Clive Barker is an author from my childhood and his ability to create worlds that seem so fantastical but so real, is both startling and brilliant, so I intend to revisit his superb, Imajica - which, along with his Weaveworld and Two Books of the Art, The Great and Secret Show and Everville are amongst those that have influenced my own writing more than any.
Having supped on the delights of Frenchman's Creek and My Cousin Rachel in recent years it feels like an age since I read Rebecca and its sequel, Mrs de Winter (did you know it had a sequel?) as does my last visit to Hobbiton, to Frodo, Gandalf and Sam, in a book that needs no introduction, that I first read as a teenager and understood a lot more as an adult (but that was near on twenty years ago now) so again, the need to dip one's toes in the waters of the Brandywine river and share that epic adventure again has begun to outweigh the compulsion to read something new.
There's nothing wrong with something new of course. I have never completed Stieg Larssons's Millennium trilogy, so this will be part reread and part first read, as will reading Stephen King's Dark Tower for the first time, having reread the first six books over the last year or two, so I'm not completely mad, I have got some new (to me anyway) books lined up for the coming year.
There's the latest Rivers of London book, False Value to read, before the next one comes out, Malorie, the sequel to Bird Box - which you might know from the film of the same name - the final book in the unbelievably superb Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, The Labyrinth of the Spirits (which I'm probably looking forward to the most) and a whole host of others that I'm sure will steer me from my path, but you can rest assured I'll keep you all posted, whatever happens.
Happy reading folks and stay safe.
Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them yet why not message me with your recommendations.
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