With World Book Day approaching, we asked several members of our School community to share their favourite books and why they love them so much! We're kicking off the series with one of our Senior School Librarians, Ms Goodwin...
"As a lifelong reader and bibliophile, I find it almost impossible to pick out a single favourite book. A top ten might be easier, or perhaps a top ten for each of my favourite genres.... but just one book? That’s quite a challenge.
At one point it would have been J D Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which I have returned to many times over since first reading it in my teens. A few years later I would have told you how I cried when I finished Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, because I wanted to know what happened to the characters after I had read the last page. Others I have loved include Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, both epic tales with complex plots and characters. When it comes to non-fiction, I recommend to anyone who will listen that they read Man’s Search for Meaning, a memoir by the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, telling of his time in Auschwitz concentration camp.
Some books, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five or Voltaire’s Candide stand out for their sheer originality, and some, such as Hugo's Les Misérables and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina are favourites for their scope and passion. Many of Dickens’ novels, such as David Copperfield, make me laugh, as does the comedic masterpiece Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome.
But I think if you’re asked to choose just one book, then it will almost certainly have a sentimental association, and will mean something more than just the text or the characters. The book I’ve chosen is The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith.
Originally published in serial format in Punch magazine, the book first appeared in 1892. It’s narrated by Charles Pooter, a petit-bourgeois London clerk, and is a record of his daily life over a period of fifteen months. Pooter is pompous and snobbish, and we watch him lurching from one social disaster to the next, all the time making observations about his wife Carrie, his son William Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances. It provides a fascinating glimpse into Victorian life, and is one of the earliest literary works to shine a light on the lower middle classes.
The book has received acclaim from many writers including Hillaire Belloc, J.B Priestley and George Orwell. Evelyn Waugh even called it “the funniest book in the world”. My love for it was passed down from my father who introduced me to it many years ago. This was my Dad’s favourite book and, since he died, I’ve taken on the mantle and am calling it mine as well."