Simon Appleby: The Book That…
Bookhugger founder Simon Appleby wrestles with his shelves to reveal the books that really float his boat.
The book that I first loved:
I have loved books for as long as I can remember, so it’s hard to single one out. If I had to, Richard Adams’ Watership Down stands out when I was about eight or nine as the book that I read over, and over, and over again. I haven’t read it for 20 years and I can still spell ‘Hyzenthlay’…
The book that I keep by my bedside:
Um, this one is a struggle – I hardly ever read in bed, and I don’t suppose the IKEA catalogue counts. A better question might be, what piece of technology do you keep at your bedside? (Answer: an Asus netbook, all the better to manage our family of websites)
The book I want to read next:
As a book reviewer on our Bookgeeks.co.uk site, I can sit at my desk and look at a special shelf of about 25 books I plan to read, and I really want to read all of them next. However I will have some time off next time I go on my hols, and I intend to catch up on the last two Booker winners – White Tiger and Wolf Hall – plus read some swashbuckling historical adventure stories by Arturo Perez-Reverte, starting with Captain Alatriste, the first of the series starring the hero of the same name. And always shadowing my thought is the notion that I must read War and Peace, in its apparently wonderful most recent translation, before too long (but not by the pool this summer).
The book I recommend to everyone is:
The Other Hand, by Chris Cleave – it had me in its clutches from its (award-winning) blurb, before I even started reading it, and didn’t let go. I have lent it to lots of people, and bought it for others.
The book that kept me awake at night:
I don’t subject myself to horror stories as a rule – an early experience with James Herbert saw to that – so sleepless nights are more associated with frantic, “can’t put this down now” book-finishing sessions – and I can’t for the life of me name any of them now, though Lord of the Rings probably was in there.
The book that made me laugh:
I have always loved humour, and have never been afraid to guffaw at great comic writing. Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Mil Millington can all have me in stitches, but for all-time fits of hysteria, I think it would have to be Tom Sharpe’s Riotous Assembly. At his best, Sharpe is an evil genius!
The book that made me cry:
I don’t do crying, but I do do depressed – I studied history at Uni, so there’s lots of grim stuff to be read there, but in my own reading: both of David Simon’s books, Homicide: Life on the Street and The Corner are among the most damning indictments of American society and its War on Drugs I could imagine, and depressed me for a good long while. Philip Gourevitch’s We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families also sticks in the mind – the title says it all. In fact, anything about the plight of Africa – King Leopold’s Ghost is pretty grim, on the Belgian exploitation of the Congo.
The book that changed my life:
Easier to talk in terms of authors – Tolkien, Evelyn Waugh, Patrick O’Brian, John Keegan, Paul Kennedy – who have had a major impact, but next to impossible to pick a standout book. So many books have made such impressions on me that they have influenced my thinking for years afterwards, for good or ill (as a teenager Marvin the Paranoid Android was my absolute hero). In the last few years, Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle probably induced the greatest sense of loss when it was finished, but if I had to pick one book, for its representation of war, for its dark humour, for its sheer craziness, I would have to go for Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.
