The Library

Welcome to an oasis of calm in the otherwise over-stimulated, madcap world of GofaDM.

Imagine if you will a small collection of over-stuffed, wing-backed, dark-red, leather armchairs companionably clustered around a roaring fire (for those still feeling the chill, tartan blankets and matching slippers are also available). As you settle comfortably into one of the chairs you notice that all around you (except where proximity to the fire would make this dangerous – the Library is no place for health and safety related anxiety – are shelves full of books. These shelves stretch as far as the eye can see in all directions except down, where you will find the floor covered in luxurious carpet, perhaps something Persian or from Wilton’s Prestige range.

The books are those read by the author during his sojourn in this vale of tears. Most of the books will be paperbacks as I try and avoid the hardback – not as a result of its greater cost (though this is a minor factor) but because of the greater storage requirements. Even in this electronic memory palace I still need to be spatially efficient as it is, in a very real sense, merely a reflection of the underlying (or at least, an underlying) reality and I have yet to master the permanently-locked hyperdimensional vortical expansion (there will be a small prize for anyone who can “get” that allusion without reference to internet search – but the book is on the shelves somewhere). Given the thousands of works that have hurried nervously (probably whistling, glancing regularly behind them) across the gap between my ears over the decades, this page will be a work-in-progress for some time. I shall start with works currently being read and gradually fill in such history as I can re-construct from my bookshelves, books in storage and fading memory.

As a student of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, the idea for this page has been freely plagiarised from a friend – by way of Iliysk and Novorossiysk. As with the source, I shall probably refrain from rating the works listed – though might, should the fancy take me, indicate (in a manner yet to be decided) any that have particularly taken my fancy.

The scene now safely set, the curtains now part to reveal…

Works being digested at the current observer moment

A Kist o Skinklan Things – An Anthology of Scots Poetry
The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula Le Guin
Superinfinite – Katherine Rundell

Works already consumed, as viewed from the current observer moment

The Next Fifty Things that made the Modern Economy – Tim Harford
Machine – Elizabeth Bear
Eyes of the Void – Adrian Tchaikovsky
The King’s Evil – Andrew Taylor
Shards of Earth – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Collected Poems, 1909-1962 – T S Eliot
The Silver Wind – Nina Allan
Ancestral Night – Elizabeth Bear
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula Le Guin
Otherlands – Thomas Halliday
The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovitch
Queen Victoria – Lucy Worsley
Unwell Women – Elinor Cleghorn
The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch
The Empire of Ashes – Anthony Ryan
What is Life? – Paul Nurse
Orwell’s Roses – Rebecca Solnit
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth – Henry Gee
Bryant and May and the Invisible Code – Christopher Fowler
Fabric – Victoria Finlay
Burning Questions – Margaret Atwood
The Idea of the Brain – Matthew Cobb
Noise – Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R Sunstein
Kingdom of Characters – Jing Tsu
Christmas is Murder – Val McDermid
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs – Steve Brusatte
Death and Fromage – Ian Moore
The Legion of Flame – Anthony Ryan
Murder Before Evensong – Richard Coles
Why is This a Question? – Paul Anthony Jones
Being You – Anil Seth
The galaxy, and the ground within – Becky Chambers
The Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything – Rutherford and Fry
The Library of the Unwritten – A J Hackwith
Black Holes – Brain Cox and Jeff Forshaw
The Waking Fire – Anthony Ryan
Word Perfect – Susie Dent
The Anomaly – Hervé Le Tellier
Monty, His Part in my Victory – Spike Milligan
The Library: A Fragile History – Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen
Ignore it and hope it goes away – Nic Aubury
Ask a Historian – Greg Jenner
The Twyford Code – Janice Hallett
Say Why to Drugs – Suzi Gage
The This – Adam Roberts
Four Thousand Weeks – Oliver Burkeman
What Abigail Did That Summer – Ben Aaronovitch
Reasons to be Cheerful – Nina Stibbe
The First Sister – Linden A Lewis
The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
Light Rains Sometimes Fall – Lev Parikian
A Very British Murder – Lucy Worsley
Greed is Dead – Paul Collier and John Kay
The Women of Troy – Pat Barker
Anthro-Vision – Gillian Tett
The Anglo-Saxons – Marc Morris
God: An Anatomy – Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Dead Man in a Ditch – Luke Arnold
A Desolation Called Peace – Arkady Martine
The Year I Stopped to Notice – Miranda Keeling
Yes But What is This? What Exactly? – Ian McMillan
Spook Street – Mick Herron
Letters to Camondo – Edmund de Waal
Amongst our Weapons – Ben Aaronovitch
Rain – Don Paterson
Winchelsea– Alex Preston
Hard Time – Jodi Taylor
Notes on the Sonnets – Luke Kennard
Fake Law – The Secret Barrister
The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett
Jigs and Reels – Joanne Harris
Eversion – Alastair Reynolds
Elizabeth Finch – Julian Barnes
Weaponized – Neal Asher
The Elements of Eloquence – Mark Forsyth
Ancestors – Alice Roberts
Equal Rites – Terry Pratchett
My Mess is a bit of a Life – Georgia Pritchett
You say potato – Ben and David Crystal
False Value – Ben Aaronvitch
Written in Bone – Sue Black
Adventures in Form – ed. by Tom Chivers
Doing Time – Jodi Taylor
Think Like an Anthropologist – Matthew Engelke
Moving Pictures – Terry Pratchett
The End of Everything – Katie Mack
The Witness for the Dead – Katherine Addison
Empireland – Sathnam Sanghera
Jack Four – Neal Asher
The Feel-Good Movie of the Year – Luke Wright
Science Fictions – Stuart Ritchie
The Beast, The Emperor and The Milkman – Harry Pearson
Breath – James Nestor
Sensemaking – Christian Madsbjerg
All the Men I Never Married – Kim Moore
Humankind – Rutger Bregman
Inhibitor Phase – Alastair Reynolds
Foundation – Isaac Asimov
Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett
The Importance of Being Interested – Robin Ince
Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett
Vesper Flights – Helen Macdonald
Connections – James Burke
Sway – Pragya Agarwal
Soul Music – Terry Pratchett
The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison
The Constant Rabbit – Jasper Fforde
River Kings – Cat Jarman
The Farthest Corner – Harry Pearson
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
Kindred – Rebecca Wragg Sykes
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London – Garth Nix
Sword of Fire – Katherine Kerr
The Glamour Boys – Chris Bryant
More than a Woman – Caitlin Moran
Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Great Pretender – Susannah Cahalan
Jingo – Terry Pratchett
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
Exercised – Daniel Lieberman
This Poison Will Remain – Fred Vargas
The Man in the Red Coat – Julian Barnes
The Angel of the Crows – Katherine Addison
The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
Pandora’s Jar – Natalie Haynes
The Prisoner of Heaven – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Bone Silence – Alastair Reynolds
Into the Tangled Bank – Lev Parikian
How to Make the World Add Up – Tim Harford
God’s Gift to Women – Don Paterson
Feet of Clay – Terry Pratchett
Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett
Richards and Klein – Guy Haley
Bessie Smith – Jackie Kay
The Gospel of the Eels – Patrik Svensson
Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
how to– Randall Munroe
Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett
Alexa, what is there to know about love? – Brian Bilston
The Three-Body Problem – Cixin Liu
The Anarchy – William Dalrymple
Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
Abaddon’s Gate – James S A Corey
The Liar’s Dictionary – Eley Williams
Dominion – Tom Holland
Isn’t Forever – Amy Key
The Human – Neal Asher
Battle Ground – Jim Butcher
Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu
Peace Talks – Jim Butcher
Difficult Women – Helen Lewis
Why do Birds Suddenly Disappear? – Lev Parikian
A Murder of Quality – John le Carré
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – Emma Southon
Mondeo Man – Luke Wright
A Fraction of the Whole – Steve Toltz
Origins – Lewis Dartnell
The Oscillations – Kate Fox
The Five – Hallie Rubenhold
Their Brilliant Careers – Ryan O’Neill
In Mid-Air – Adam Gopnik
A Song for the Dark Times – Ian Rankin
Weapons of Math Destruction – Cathy O’Neil
The Artful Dickens – John Mullan
Eating the Sun – Oliver Morton
Music to Eat Cake By – Lev Parikian
The Toll – Luke Wright
Caliban’s War – James S A Corey
The Art of Statistics – David Spiegelhalter
The Riddle of the Fractal Monks – Jonathan Pinnock
This is Your Brain on Music – Daniel Levitin
Reckless Paper Birds – John McCullough
I Contain Multitudes – Ed Yong
A Thousand Small Sanities – Adam Gopnik
The Art of Falling – Kim Moore
The First Book of Lankhmar – Fritz Leiber
Invisible Women – Caroline Criado Perez
How to Fly – Barbara Kingsolver
Yellow Blue Tibia – Adam Roberts
Transition – Iain Banks
The Body – Bill Bryson
Dead Famous – Greg Jenner
what if? – Randall Munroe
Agent Jack – Robert Hutton
Deep Lane – Mark Doty
The Hidden Half: Michael Blastland
Mordew – Alex Pheby
Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Forbidden Line – Paul Stanbridge
Sentenced to Life – Clive James
The Rules of Contagion – Adam Kucharski
As kingfishers catch fire – Gerard Manley Hopkins
Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar – Olga Wojtas
Twenty Theatres to See Before You Die – Amber Massie-Blomfield
Impossible Things Before Breakfast – Rebecca Front
The AI Does Not Hate You – Tom Chivers
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Intae the Snow – Thomas Clark
Three Men on the Bummel – Jerome K Jerome
Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken – The Secret Barrister
Tongues of Fire – Seán Hewitt
Francis Plug: Writer in Residence – Paul Ewen
The Secret Life of Snow – Giles Whittell
Lotharingia – Simon Winder
Fall, or Dodge in Hell – Neal Stephenson
40 Sonnets – Don Paterson
Gene Machine – Venki Ramakrishnan
Don’t be a dick, Pete – Stuart Heritage
All that remains: a life in death – Sue Black
The Secret World – Christopher Andrew
I Never Said I Loved You – Rhik Samadder
Patience – Toby Litt
Living with Buildings – Iain Sinclair
The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry
It’s All About the Bike – Robert Penn
Less – Andrew Sean Greer
Liege Killer – Christopher Hinz
The Science of Storytelling – Will Storr
The Maker of Swans – Paraic O’Donnell
If all the world and love were young – Stephen Sexton
Leviathan Wakes – James S A Corey
Haunts of the Black Masseur – Charles Sprawson
Significant Other – Isabel Galleymore
Calling a Wolf a Wolf – Kaveh Akbar
The Happy Brain – Dean Burnett
The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
Permanent Record – Edward Snowden
Absorption – John Meaney
The Vinyl Detective – Andrew Cartmel
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel – Tom Wainwright
The Big Book of the Continental Op – Dashiell Hammett
In a House of Lies – Ian Rankin
The Hard Word Box – Sarah Hesketh
The October Man – Ben Aaronovitch
Reality is Not What It Seems – Carlo Rovelli
Sleeping Lies – Ben Aaronovitch
Diary of a Somebody – Brian Bilston
The New Silk Roads – Peter Frankopan
Emergency Window – Ross Sutherland
Seashaken Houses – Tom Nancollas
Admissions – Henry Marsh
Forms of Protest – Hannah Silva
The Seduction of Curves – Allan McRobie
The House on Vesper Sands – Paraic O’Donnell
The Book of Humans – Adam Rutherford
Tamed – Alice Roberts
The Hare with Amber Eyes – Edmund de Waal
Selected Poems – Federico García Lorca
Children of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Player of Games – Iain M Banks
Lanny – Max Porter
Look to Windward – Iain M Banks
The Warship – Neal Asher
Death in Ten Minutes – Fern Riddell
West – Carys Davies
The Perseverance – Raymond Antrobus
Consider Phlebas – Iain M Banks
Record of a Spaceborn Few – Becky Chambers
In Your Defence – Sarah Langford
The Empathy Problem – Gavin Extence
Jeeves and the Wedding Bells – Sebastian Faulks
Some Ending – Ben Norris
Falling Awake – Alice Oswald
Use of Weapons – Iain M Banks
Bayonets, Mangoes and Beads – Nairobi Thompson
Wyntertide – Andrew Caldecott
Hello World -Hannah Fry
The Revenant Express – George Mann
Freshwater – Akwaeke Emezi
The Magus – John Fowles
The Accordionist – Fred Vargas
Built – Roma Agrawal
Uncommon Type – Tom Hanks
Don’t Call Us Dead – Danez Smith
The Slow Regard of Silent Things – Patrick Rothfuss
The Alan Coren Omnibus – Alan Coren
Lantern – Seán Hewitt
Viking Britain – Thomas Williams
The Fifth Business – Robertson Davies
Erebus – Michael Palin
Early Riser – Jasper Fforde
The Pyramid of Mud – Andrea Camilleri
Let’s explore diabetes with owls – David Sedaris
The Pirates! In an adventure with Napoleon – Gideon Defoe
Caeser’s Last Breath – Sam Kean
Brief Cases – Jim Butcher
Gnomon – Nick Harkaway
Other Minds – Peter Godfrey-Smith
The Soldier – Neal Asher
Dent’s Modern Tribes – Suzie Dent
The Fetch – Gregory Leadbetter
Ten Little Astronauts – Damon L Wakes
The Bedlam Stacks – Natasha Pulley
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts – Christopher de Hamel
Advice to a Young Skydiver – Joshua Seigal
The Horologicon – Mark Forsyth
Ticker Tape – Rishi Dastidar
Sweet Sixteen – A L Kennedy
The Unexpected Truth about Animals – Lucy Cooke
Arbitrary and Unnecessary – Daniel Piper
Night Sky with Exit Wounds – Ocean Vuong
1971: Never a Dull Moment – David Hepworth
Playtime – Andrew McMillan
Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
This is Going to Hurt – Adam Kay
The Bicycle Book – Bella Bathurst
The Road to Little Dribbling – Bill Bryson
Kumukanda – Kayo Chingonyi
What we Cannot Know – Marcus du Sautoy
Poet-to-Poet: Thom Gunn – selected by August Kleinzahler
No-one Cares About Your New Thing – John Osborne
Jackself – Jacob Polley
East West Street – Phillippe Sands
The Witchwood Crown – Tad Williams
Exile and the Kingdom Stories – Albert Camus
The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables – Robert Henryson, tr. Seamus Heaney
9Tail Fox – Jon Courtnay Grimwood
Journey of Love – Nairobi Thompson
The Furthest Station – Ben Aaronovitch
Universal – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
The Only Story – Julian Barnes
The Grace of Kings – Ken Liu
Women and Power – Mary Beard
Algorithms to live by – Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths
The Iron Wyrm Affair – Lilith Saintcrow
Seventh Decimate – Stephen Donaldson
To the Letter – Simon Garfield
The Bertie Project – Alexander MacCall Smith
The Idiot Brain – Dean Burnett
The Drosten’s Curse – A L Kennedy
Elysium Fire – Alastair Reynolds
The Sparsholt Affair – Alan Hollingshurst
You Took The Last Bus Home – Brian Bilston
The Buried Life – Carrie Patel
Kill Baxter – Charlie Human
The Three Evangelists – Fred Vargas
Ten Cities that made an Empire – Tristram Hunt
Exodus – Alex Lamb
Neither Nowt nor Summat – Ian McMillan
Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
Nemesis – Alex Lamb
Revenger – Alasdair Reynolds
A Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived – Adam Rutherford
Miss Treadaway and the Field of Stars – Miranda Emmerson
The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – Hilary Mantel
How to Stop Time – Matt Haig
Other People’s Money – John Kay
The End of the Day – Claire North
Infinity Engine – Neal Asher
A Voice in the Night – Andrea Camilleri
The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovitch
Selected Poems – Fernando Pessoa
The Many Selves of Katherine North – Emma Geen
Rather be the Devil – Ian Rankin
The Naked Diplomat – Tom Fletcher
A Quantum Murder – Peter F Hamilton
Poseidon’s Wake – Alastair Reynolds
Grimm Tales for Young and Old – Philip Pullman
Grief is the thing with feathers – Max Porter
The Lost Time Accidents – John Wray
This Orient Isle – Jerry Brotton
Words of Radiance, Part Two – Brandon Sanderson
Killing Pretty – Richard Kadrey
Words of Radiance, Part One – Brandon Sanderson
The Getaway God – Richard Kadrey
Empire of Things – Frank Trentmann
A Portrait of an Idiot as a Young Man – Jon Holmes
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness – Robert Yates
The Noise of Time – Julian Barnes
Alan Stoob: Nazi Hunter – Saul Wordsworth
Slow Bullets – Alastair Reynolds
Judas Unchained – Peter F Hamilton
Gut – Giulia Enders
The Heart of what was Lost – Tad Williams
Judas Unchained – Peter F Hamilton
The Last Days of New Paris – China Miéville
A closed and common orbit – Becky Chambers
The Sudden Appearance of Hope – Claire North
The Invention of Nature – Andrea Wulf
How the French Think – Sudhir Hazareesingh
Killing Moon – N K Jemisin
England, England – Julian Barnes
Applied Mathematics – Dan Simpson
Theatre of the Gods – M Suddain
The Sellout – Paul Beatty
Skyfaring – Mark Vanhoenacker
Still falling – Sara Hirsch
The Path of Anger – Antoine Rouaud
Germany – Neil McGregor
Pulse – Julian Barnes
Cain – Luke Kennard
The Algebraist – Iain M Banks
Shadow of the Swan – M K Wren
Stars, A Very Short Introduction – Andrew King
SPQR – Mary Beard
Sword of the Lamb – M K Wren
Secrets of the Fire Sea – Stephen Hunt
A Climate of Fear – Fred Vargas
Montalbano’s first case and other stories – Andrea Camilleri
How to Write About Theatre – Mark Fisher
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers
The Vorrh – B Catling
A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor
Reading like a Writer – Francine Prose
The Rook – Daniel O’Malley
Sum – David Eagleman
Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms – Paul Willetts
The Brewer of Preston – Andrea Camilleri
The Silo Effect – Gillian Tett
The Silk Roads – Peter Frankopan
Memoirs of a Porcupine – Alain Mabanckou
The Adjacent – Christopher Priest
Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari
All is Silence – Manuel Rivas
Neurotribes – Steve Silberman
The Vital Question – Nick Lane
Resistance is Futile – Jenny T Colgan
InterRail – Alessandro Gallenzi
Between the Woods and the Water – Patrick Leigh Fermor
A Sense of Direction – Gideon Lewis-Kravs
A Million Years in a Day – Greg Jenner
The Evolution of Inanimate Objects – Harry Karlinsky
The Spies – Luis Fernando Verissimo
Chipmunk seeks squirrel – David Sedaris
Adventures in the Anthropocene – Gaia Vince
A Darker Shade of Magic – V E Schwab
The Undercover Economist Strikes Back – Tim Harford
Egghead – Bo Burnham
On the Steel Breeze – Alastair Reynolds
Adapt – Tim Harford
Being Mortal – Atul Gawande
The Mirror World of Melody Black – Gavin Extence
Kalooki Nights – Howard Jacobson
Birth of a Theorem – Cédric Villani
Rogue Teacher – Mark Grist
This Night’s Foul Work – Fred Vargas
The Table of Less Valued Knights – Marie Phillips
Devil Said Bang – Richard Kadrey
Blood Rain – Michael Dibdin
The Ghost Riders of Ordebec – Fred Vargas
A Quantum Mythology – Gavin Smith
The Chalk Circle Man – Fred Vargas
A gladiator only dies once – Steven Saylor
Life on the Edge – Jim Al-Khalili & Johnjoe McFadden
Dog will have his day – Fred Vargas
The Osiris Ritual – George Mann
An Uncertain Place – Fred Vargas
Curious – Rebecca Front
The Affinity Bridge – George Mann
Angels over Elsinore – Clive James
Millenium – Tom Holland
Have mercy on us all – Fred Vargas
Grown Up – Scott Tyrell
The Wise Man’s Fear – Patrick Rothfuss
Stuff Matters – Mark Miodownik
The Ego Trick – Julian Baggini
Born Liars – Ian Leslie
Nocturnes – Kazuo Ishiguro
I think you’ll find its a bit more complicated than that – Ben Goldacre
The Circle Line – Steffan Meyric Hughes
Confronting the Classics – Mary Beard
How’s the pain? – Pascal Garnier
Things to make and do in the 4th Dimension – Matt Parker
The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi – Mark Hodder
How to Build a Girl – Caitlin Moran
How it all began – Penelope Lively
The Buried Giant – Kazuo Ishiguro
Kill the Dead – Richard Kadrey
Game of Mirrors – Andrea Camilleri
The Shepherd’s Crown – Terry Pratchett
Monsieur Pamplemousse and the Carbon Footprint – Michael Bond
Screwtop Thompson – Magnus Mills
A Long Finish – Michael Dibdin
Sandman Slim – Richard Kadrey
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains – Neil Gaiman
The Chimes – Anna Smaill
45 Mercy Street – Anne Sexton
The Pleasant Light of Day – Philip Ó Ceallaigh
Landing Light – Don Paterson
Alex through the Looking Glass – Alex Bellos
The Revolving Door of Life – Alexander McCall Smith
The Aleph and Other Stories – Jorge Luis Borges
Physical – Andrew McMillan
The Connectome – Sebastian Seung
Rain – Don Patterson
Dances Learned Last Night – Michael Donaghy
The Sense of Style – Steven Pinker
Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges
The Epigenetics Revolution – Nessa Carey
The Man Who Couldn’t Stop – David Adam
School of the Arts – Mark Doty
Unkind to Unicorns – A E Housman
Electrified Sheep – Alex Boese
The Water Table – Philip Gross
Conjure – Michael Donaghy
New Light for the Old Dark – Sam Willetts
The Ice Age – Paul Farley
Portrait of my Father in an English Landscape – George Szirtes
Worst Date Ever – Jane Bussman
Look we have coming to Dover! – Daljit Nagra
Bestiary – Helen Dunmore
Manhattan in Reverse – Peter F Hamilton
Atlantis – Mark Doty
Family Values – Wendy Cope
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis – Wendy Cope
The Passages of Joy – Thom Gunn
Barrel Fever – David Sedaris
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being – Alice Roberts
The Beat Goes On – Ian Rankin
The Prisoner of Heaven – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Beowulf – Seamus Heaney
Silver – Andrew Motion
The A-Z of You and Me – James Hannah
Paris to the Moon – Adam Gopnik
50 Moments that Rocked the Classical Music World – Darren Henley & Sam Jackson
The Causal Angel – Hannu Rajaniemi
The Treasure Hunt – Andrea Camilleri
Question Everything – New Scientist
The Angel’s Game – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Letter from America – Alistair Cooke
All the Rage – A L Kennedy
Touch – Claire North
The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss
Bacteria, A Very Short Introduction – Sebastian G B Aymes
Tigerman – Nick Harkaway
The Mathematical Universe – Max Tegmark
Foxglove Summer – Ben Aaronovitch
the long and the short of it – John Kay
Do No Harm – Henry Marsh
The Price of Inequality – Joseph E Stiglitz
Germania – Simon Winder
How to Be a Woman – Caitlin Moran
The Undivided Past – David Cannadine
Is that a Fish in Your Ear? – David Bellos
Justice – Michael J Sandel
Deep Sea and Foreign Going – Rose George
The Blind Giant – Nick Harkaway
Into the Woods – John Yorke
One Summer – Bill Bryson
Spell It Out – David Crystal
Danubia – Simon Winder
The Humans – Matt Haig
Saints of the Shadow Bible – Ian Rankin
Standing in a Dead Man’s Grave – Ian Rankin
The Hydrogen Sonata – Iain M Banks
The Quarry – Iain Banks
The Fractal Prince – Hannu Rajamieni
Cold Days – Jim Butcher
The Last Dark – Stephen R Donaldson
Polity Agent – Neal Asher
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
The Dark is Rising Sequence – Susan Cooper
Hilldiggers – Neal Asher
Three Men on the Bummel – Jerome K Jerome
Cetaganda – Lois McMaster Bujold
The Teleportation Accident – Ned Beaumont
The Shock of the Fall – Nathan Filer
The Fractal Prince – Hannu Rajaniemi
Light – M John Harrison
The Universe Against Alex Woods – Gavin Extence
The Cunning Man – Robertson Davies
Endymion Omnibus – Dan Simmons
The Islanders – Christopher Priest
Hogfather – Terry Pratchett
Irrationality – Stuart Sutherland
Contingency, irony and solidarity – Richard Rorty
why does E=mc²? – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
What Money Can’t Buy – Michael J Sandel
The Quantum Universe – Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
The Truth about Markets – John Kay
Reckoning with Risk – Gerd Gigerenzer
A History of the World in Twelve Maps – Jerry Brotton
Finding Moonshine – Marcus du Sautoy
Pieces of Light – Charles Fernyhough
Creation – Adam Rutherford
Why is there something rather than nothing? – Leszek Kolakowski
The Book of Barely Imagined Beings – Caspar Henderson
Why We Build – Rowan Moore
The Signal and the Noise – Nate Silver
Turing’s Cathedral – George Dyson
Bad Pharma – Ben Goldacre
Lost for Words – John Humphries
Obliquity – John Kay
The Arcanum – Janet Gleeson
Complexity – M Mitchell Waldrop
Meaning, medicine and the ‘placebo effect’ – Daniel Moerman
Midnight at the Pera Palace – Charles King
The Penguin Book of Scottish Folktales – ed. Neil Philip
The Fictional Man – Al Ewing
The Incorruptibles – John Horner Jacobs
Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch
Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovitch
The Fear Institute – Jonathan L Howard
Dead Girl Walking – Christopher Brookmyre
Johannes Cabal the detective – Jonathan L Howard
Dark Intelligence – Neal Asher
Skin Game – Jim Butcher
The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
Fool’s Gold – Gillian Tett
The Idea of Justice – Amartya Sen
Not that kind of girl – Lena Dunham
God Collar – Marcus Brigstocke
This should be written in the present tense – Helle Helle
See Delphi and Die – Lindsey Davis
Doctor Who: 12 Doctors, 12 Stories – various
The Language of Dying – Sarah Pinborough
Hot Lead, Cold Iron – Ari Marmell
Dead Lagoon – Michael Dibdin
Apocalypse now now – Charlie Human
The Coincidence Engine – Sam Leith
The first fifteen lives of Harry August – Claire North
The Trundlers – Harry Pearson
Anathem – Neal Stephenson
Raising Steam – Terry Pratchett
Flesh Wounds – Christopher Brookmyre
Jupiter War – Neal Asher
The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
Saki: The Complete Short Stories – H H Munro
Evening’s Empire – Paul J McAuley
Boneland – Alan Garner
Kraken – China Miéville
Sunshine on Scotland Street – Alexander McCall Smith
Alif the Unseen – G Willow Wilson
Terra – Mitch Benn
Gradisil – Adam Roberts
Cowl – Neal Asher
The Gypsy Morph – Terry Brooks
All fun and games until somebody loses an eye – Christopher Brookmyre
The Cornish Trilogy – Robertson Davies
Moon over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch
Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers – Alexander McCall Smith
Help! – Oliver Burkeman
For Richer, For Poorer – Victoria Coren
The Technician – Neal Asher
13 Things That Don’t Make Sense – Michael Brooks
1227 Qi Facts – The QI Elves
Jumpers for Goalposts – Rob Smyth and Georgina Turner
The Ancient Guide to Modern Living – Natalie Haynes
Quirkology – Richard Wiseman
The Self Illusion – Bruce Hood
August Heat – Andrea Camilleri
Gridlinked – Neal Asher
The Etymologicon – Mark Forsyth
The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
The Parthenon – Mary Beard
At Home – Bill Bryson
The Skinner – Neal Asher
Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks – Alan Coren
Jizz – John Hart
The Pearl – John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Animal Farm – George Orwell
1984 – George Orwell
An Inspector Calls – J B Priestley
All Mary – Gwynedd Rae
The Tales of Olga de Polga – Michael Bond
Galactic Patrol – E E ‘Doc’ Smith
Grey Lensman – E E ‘Doc’ Smith
Second Stage Lensman – E E ‘Doc’ Smith
Children of the Lens – E E ‘Doc’ Smith
Damiano – R A McAvoy
Damiano’s Lute – R A McAvoy
Raphael – R A McAvoy
Macbeth – William Shakespeare
Winnie-the-Pooh – A A Milne
The House at Pooh Corner – A A Milne
Now we are six – A A Milne
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator – Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
Witch World – Andre Norton
My Family and Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
The Talking Parcel – Gerald Durrell
The Caine Mutiny – Herman Wouk
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
Changing Places – David Lodge
Small World – David Lodge
Nice Work – David Lodge

To be continued…

8 thoughts on “The Library”

Dimitris Melicertes says:
17 Jun 2015 at 22:54


Ah, dammit, you thought of counting them! No way I can go back and do that now…

Gradisil’s author is my Director of Graduates and he discussed with me my university work a week ago during my annual review.

Also, it’s terrifying how many of these names I don’t even recognize. I blame you for the horror now instilled in me.
Stuart Ffoulkes says:
18 Jun 2015 at 06:51


I have a small confession to make about the counting: I never wanted nor intended to include it. For some reason, WordPress wanted to double space the list of books, which looked ghastly, and the only method I could find to stop it was to use a numbered list. I’m now pleased I did it, but I can claim little credit for the idea.

Numbers 1-123 (as of 18 June 2015) are relatively recent reads – so have not required me to go through the contents of the storage unit. Nos. 124-148 are strange recollections from long, long ago – many from my childhood – which sprang unbidden into my mind during the course of yesterday.

Gradisil was OK, but I really loved Adam Glass. I am starting to feel that I am (unintentionally) stalking you via your academic suzerains (first ALK and now Adam Roberts).

Your list had a similar effect on me – so many books yet to read, so little statistically-likely life-span remaining. BTW: if you ever want to try something on the list, you are more than welcome to borrow it (assuming it didn’t come from the library) as I could do with freeing up the space for more books!
- Dimitris Melicertes says:
  19 Jun 2015 at 00:44
  
  
  You can CTRL+Enter to single space the line or use the simple text editor.
  
  Haha, #96 was also a teacher during my MA at Warwick, though at the time I chose different courses than the ones he gave. Sci-fi won me over much later, back then I was immensely fascinated by biographical writing. But yes, brilliant people, all of them, and equally luminous as writers.
  
  Is this becoming a blogging/book-borrowing thing?! I’m much obliged and I’d like to reciprocate the gesture, so of course the same goes for any book on my list. Who knows, I might take you up on your offer. But my books I’m afraid are often underlined, have words circled, are earmarked and include notes in the margins so it’s almost impossible to read them for the first time ignoring my then-thoughts on the narrative, which I guess can be infuriating…
  - Stuart Ffoulkes says:
    19 Jun 2015 at 07:05
    
    
    OMD! The teachers you had on tap at Warwick – I am consumed by a homophone for a Dutch public limited-liability company! The City and the City absolutely below me away – to the extent that I have bought copies for other people (something I never do).
    
    I feel that the sharing of good books is a moral imperative (and one of the not very well hidden agendas of GofaDM) – it is just so rare you find a counterparty who would appreciate being shared with (rather than taking it as low-level bullying). I also feel it is a natural next step for our burgeoning blog-pal “relationship”. I will admit, though, that writing in books is one area in which we differ – I am utterly unable to intentionally mark a book in any way. At some level I’m not sure I entirely approve of an author signing a copy of their own book. I’m uncertain where this comes from – if in doubt, I blame the parents – but I seem to apply similar principles more broadly in my life. Having said this, I do recognise the historical significance (and often entertainment value) of marginalia. I suspect your marginalia would be a hoot or a deeply disturbing window into the roiling, obsidian depths of your psyche – either way, count me in!
Dimitris Melicertes says:
19 Jun 2015 at 09:57


I seem to be unable to reply to your last comment directly. Either we’ve reached your blog’s preferences’s limit in regards to nested comments or WordPress is telling me to stop smearing with my presence this temple of exquisite language that GofaDM is. Probably the latter.

I’ve yet to read The City & The City though a good friend has reminded me to more than many times… I’ve heard the best for it.

Glad my marginalia won’t be a problem. On the other hand, you shouldn’t trust me with your books. I’m psychotic, really. Known to inscribe my initials in tiny characters at random parts within the bibliography of books I’ve borrowed from libraries… I can’t help it.
- Stuart Ffoulkes says:
  19 Jun 2015 at 10:26
  
  
  A-ha! You are correct (not a Norwegian boyband of the 80s) – I have boosted the nesting limit to the max. I used to programme in Lisp and studied Recursive Function Theory as part of my degree – nesting holds no fears for me! (Well, as far as Aleph null anyway – I think we need to keep the levels countable).
  
  You share the love for books, all else is mere detail. I shall have fun with a magnifying glass looking for tiny DMs (or DPs) in any returnees.
  - Dimitris Melicertes says:
    19 Jun 2015 at 10:32
    
    
    You should have inadvertently reminded me of The Aleph, argh. I’ve been meaning to brush up on Borges and specifically reread that one short story because it’s been ages and I don’t for the life of me remember how he ends it. Plus, I wanted to look at the language again.
    
    Also, a theoretical point: could one just include one entry, ”The Aleph – Jorge Luis Borges”, in their reading list/library archive and count that as having read everything in the known universe? Or is that too meta.
    - Stuart Ffoulkes says:
      19 Jun 2015 at 10:42
      
      
      It would depend on which Aleph and your view on the correctness (or otherwise) of the Riemann hypothesis. We might also need to consider whether the universe is continuous or becomes granular at a certain level. If you ever fancy a quick Cantor (Gregor of that ilk) through transfinite set theory and the fun of Cardinal arithmetic, I could be your man!
      
      JLB is one of the most embarrassing omissions in my reading list (or more, not in it) – and one I’ve been meaning to correct for a while (possibly longer than you’ve been alive. I can be quite dilatory).
      
      We love meta here – and you can never have too much (then again, I did find Inception rather tedious – so perhaps it depends how you do it).