My ten most influential / inspiring books

A little Facebook meme has been keeping me and my friendship group amused recently. We’ve all ‘tagged’ to write a list of the ten books that have most influenced / inspired us. I thought I’d share mine here to hopefully inspire a few more recommendations and inspirations!

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The first time I read this book, the world looked a little bit different after I had finished it. I have read this book countless times now and every time I love it a little bit more.

2. Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery
My favourite childhood series and I have a very soft spot for the red headed orphan to this day.

3. Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
* I wrote a little explanation below for my friends on this one, but if you are a regular here, you’ll know how much I love this one already!

Am I allowed non-fiction? This book is virtually unknown, but I turn to it every time I need a comfort read. It describes the author just reading from her own library for a year, without buying any new books. She discovers old favourites, remembers the authors she has met and the stories around her books. In the end she complies her list of 50 essential books…fascinating and inspiring.

4. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
Not as well-known perhaps as The Age of Innocence (which is also one of my favourites) but Lily Bart’s story broke my heart. Beautifully written.

5. The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
My Dad’s favourite book and so I absorbed this from the cradle upwards! A masterpiece.

6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Just how did a woman who had barely left a Yorkshire parsonage imagine a man like Heathcliff??

7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
As a Yorkshire woman, I feel I am allowed two Brontes on my list. This was the first classic I read around the age of ten or eleven and so it has a special place in my heart. I have a quote from Jane Eyre engraved on one of my favourite bracelets: ‘I am no bird, and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will’ …just to remind me!

8. Othello, Shakespeare
Does a play count? I really struggled whether to choose Othello or Macbeth, but went for Othello as I don’t think anyone understands or describes human beings better than Shakespeare and all his genius is displayed in Othello. Having studied both at school and seen them many times, I can quote from them copiously!

9. Atonement by Ian McEwan
The ending astonished me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks after I had read it. A modern classic.

10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Opened my eyes in so many ways.

I apologise to all the wonderful books that I have forgotten to mention, but this was the list that came to me on Tuesday night. My friends’ lists contained some other wonderful recommendations that I have never read: I’ve added the The Deptford Mice trilogy by Robin Jarvis and Shogun by James Clavell to my wish list! What would be on your list? I’d love to know.

 

The Scottish Play

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…

Inside The Globe

Yesterday, we went to see a new version of Macbeth at The Globe. Since studying Macbeth both in primary and secondary school, it is one of my most loved of his plays. As a tragic hero, I think Macbeth is one of the most sympathetic. Ambition is an understandable fatal flaw. Hamlet’s indecisiveness, King Lear’s blindness, Othello’s jealousy are all on some level incredibly frustrating whereas Macbeth’s ambition could be a wonderful thing, until it becomes ‘vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself’ as he says himself. Credit to him for self-awareness!

Macbeth’s soliloquy towards the end of the play after (*spolier alert!) Lady Macbeth has died is etched  into my memory after committing it there for an exam.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

It is hard to think of a more despairing but beautiful speech. I always thought that this reaction to Lady Macbeth’s death was strangely muted, but perhaps the more tragic for it. It seems Macbeth knows there is no hope for him and, without her, feels it doesn’t matter anyway, as life is an illusion that signifies nothing.  This speech is also a dose of healthy scepticism about theatre as well, if life is just a poor player that signifies nothing as well. At the end of his career when he wrote Macbeth, does this say that Shakespeare tiring of theatre? I can’t agree that theatre signifies nothing. I think it is an important mechanism for culture, art, release, social and political commentary and entertainment. However,  does it have a tendency to take itself a little too seriously? Yes, sometimes, and I love Shakespeare all the more for his commentary on his own profession.

Every time I see Shakespeare, I marvel at his continuing relevance and beautiful words. His deep knowledge of what makes human beings tick, despite writing four hundred years ago, knocks me for six every time.

Macbeth Programme August 2013