Books I have loved.

ELIZABETH KOSTOVA – The Historian – Libraries, historians, and vampires. Add to that more types of dialogue than you can shake a stick at. I think I’m in heaven
HOMER – The Iliad
DH LAWRENCE – Lady Chatterley’s Lover
NEIL GAIMAN – American Gods - this is BRILLIANT and should be read by all.
TERRY PRATCHETT – Reaper Man, Soul Music – and all the rest of them, to be honest
DOUGLAS ADAMS – HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
PETRONIUS – Satyricon
MARCELLO FOIS – The Advocate – simple but beautiful
EMILY MIANO – Encyclopedia of Snow
HENRIK IBSEN – A Doll’s House, Ghosts etc. – desperately want to read them in the Norwegian
EURIPIDES – Medea, Trojan Women – I knew I had grown up when I read Trojan Women and appreciated it both as an ancient text and as a piece of drama. My childhood is no more…
SOPHOCLES – Theban Trilogy
STEVEN SAYLOR – the Roma sub Rosa series – especially Catalina’s Riddle, which is one of the best books I’ve ever read, with the best scene of homo-erotic tension I have had the pleasure (?) of reading.
OVID – Metamorphoses – Seamlessly done.
TOM HOLLAND – Rubicon – a retelling of the death of the Roman Republic from the perspective of the Republic itself. Brilliantly written.
CATULLUS – Poems – I love Catullus, so much so I’m working on a translation of my own. MUCH better than that Guy Lee crap, he’s totally missed the point.
SHAKESPEARE – Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing – I played Lady Macbeth in the school play when I was about 9. And Titus is so deliciously Ovidian, it’s wonderful.
DANTE – Inferno – although all three are brilliant to read in the original, such a nice balance between Latin and modern Italian.
EDGAR ALLEN POE – The Raven – my favourite poem ever, actually.

… and the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before…
The two most perfect lines of poetry ever written.

BRAM STOKER – Dracula
EMILY BRONTË – Wuthering Heights – and thank you Kate Bush
LINDSEY DAVIS – the Marcus Didius Falco series
NICK HORNBY – High Fidelity
JOANNE HARRIS – Chocolat
NICK CAVE – And The Ass Saw The Angel – really atmospheric, it’s incredible.
ANNE RICE – Interview with the Vampire
The entire Point Horror series/group/library whatever – reminds me of my 14 year old gothy self wishing I had enough money to dye my hair black and wear sweepy skirts… sigh…
JAMES HERBERT – The Dark – Trashy horror. Yay!
MANDA SCOTT – the Boudica Series – which I originally thought was a trilogy, then when I bought the third, filled with excitement at the thought of finishing it, I spotted the hardback of the fourth. Which kind of annoyed me, but at the same time… hmmm… Anyway, this woman is incredibly talented – there’s so many passages of description where you forget you’re reading altogether and are just there. I’ve never been able to see what I’m reading so well before.
ALBERTO MORAVIA – La Mascherata – Like Gosford Park, but with a much better plot. And it was the first Italian book I read when I discovered a talent for reading different languages without actually looking at the words.
LEONARDO SCIASCIA – A Ciascuno il Suo – the second. Obviously I read it for A-Level, but I managed to totally deny the existence of the ending, so it was a nice surprise. Though of course it’s not a surprise at all, but you get me.
ARTHUR C CLARKE – I can’t name a specific one, I devoured his short stories in my sci-fi phase (age about 16). There’s still ones where I get a shiver down my spine when I think about them. Brilliant.
ANDY RILEY – The Book of Bunny Suicides – sadistic genius
MARGARET DOODY – Aristotle Detective – the whole series is amazing, and at last brought the Classical Greek period to life. Fantastic perspective.
GLEN DAVID GOLD – Carter Beats the Devil – really well written, suspense, excitement and a good dose of humour.
DAVID WISHART – Ovid
ALLAN MASSIE – Augustus – even if he does have some funny ideas about them all.
SIMON SCARROW – Under the Eagle
MATTHEW PEARL – The Dante Club
STEVE LOWE & ALAN MCARTHUR – Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?
CLAUDIA ROBEN – Arabesque
TESSA KIROS – Falling Cloudberries, Twelve – Two abcolutely beautiful recipe books, crammed with gorgeous recipes. Oh my god, this woman makes a fantastic carrot cake (and so do I now. yay!)
NOËL COWARD – everything. Love him.
LUCAN – Civil War – I’ve translated bits of this, I love his style.
TACITUS – Annals of Imperial Rome – again, I’ve translated bits of this (for pleasure as well as education) and what you don’t get from just studying it is a finely judged sarcasm. Biting wit.
SUETONIUS – Lives of the Emperors – Scandal! Intrigue! Rudey Bits! The tabloid paper of the ancient world.
ROBERT GRAVES – I Clavdivs
HARPER LEE – To Kill a Mockingbird – amazingly, a GCSE text that I still love.
PATRICK SUSKIND – Perfume
ALLAN GINSBERG – Howl – I hate to eat my words. And I still think I’m right. But here you go, Paul. This one’s for you.
JED RUBENFELD – The Interpretation of Murder – Suitably gory, twisted and Freudian. Characterisation slips after a few chapters but the scene-setting remains superb.
TOM HOLLAND – Persian Fire – More from the Greek perspective than the Persian, but the narratives of the major battles of the Persian War are superb. I’ve read so many dry textbook passages and translated incomprehensible Greek histories about it but nothing made me understand it more than this. I must have all his books.