​John Betjeman's Collected Poems

​We were not a bookish household, and especially not poetry, but my father got me this book after he read an article about Betjeman in the newspaper. His style didn’t do a lot for me though like Larkin I came to appreciate it, but his subject matter was all around me, from tennis clubs to the keeping of social face to the Underground trains that jolted along the tracks through leafy suburbia and were the reason we and our neighbours were here. He’s very good on death and lust (he never really came to terms with either) but can be trite in other poems; a “Collected” can be exposing, I don’t know why poets agree to them, a “Selected” is so much safer!

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The novels that have stuck with me come from my teenage years; I guess longevity in the mind is as good a test of worth as any. This is such and comes with the advantage of being one of Dickens’ shorter novels (it took me fifteen years to finish Martin Chuzzlewit ...). For me, Pip remains the unquestioning eternal child, really quite out of his depth and at the disposal of others even when good fortune comes his way. Miss Haversham is a wonderful creation and the story arc of the convict has conviction. The marshes, the graveyard, the crumbling wedding cake, have all stayed with me; no wonder it is a popular adaptation for film, television and the stage. I would recommend the novel Jack Maggs by the Australian author Peter Carey; a wonderful re-reading of the Magwitch character.  

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

This was my introduction to Hardy and his grinding wheel of fate; goodness me, that wheel was in every book and never tired of turning…..I bought The Hand of Ethelberta, his only comedy, and even in that fate was the implacable foe never to be defeated. However, I read this at an impressionable age, and in a relatively short novel (this seems to be a recurring theme based on my concentration span) I was knocked out by the story of remorse and redemption and ill founded pride and Henchard’s wish to be obliterated and forgotten. That summer I took a bicycle trip around “Wessex” staying in many of the places he renamed as locations including Dorchester and Corfe Castle, and this cemented the story in my head for ever. There was a TV adaptation at the time starring Alan Bates as the eponymous character, and so convinced was I by his performance that it was a surprise to me a couple of years later to overhear him talking to his agent in a restaurant and find that he was quite the effete thespian and not a gruff son of the Dorset soil! That was my introduction to the art of disguise and bloody actors….  

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I was in a bookshop where I grew up and idly fluffing through the shelves when I stopped at this book. I started reading the back cover when the local rabbi spoke from behind me: “Read it, you’ll never forget it”. So I bought it, read it and have never forgotten it. Led me onto many other Steinbeck books and was probably my first taste of an American author, but none of his books  topped this for ambition and story telling and a voice of righteous indignation; nowadays, he would probably be considered very left wing in the USA. He won the Nobel Prize, though I’m not sure he deserved it and you could equally argue that, say The Great Gatsby, was the great American novel. But The Grapes of Wrath has had a huge effect throughout the world (certainly the post war years) on social policy and government action and on the minds of readers. “Once read, never forgotten” is a pretty good blurb to put on a book!      

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop is a touchstone for me. Whenever I am struggling to make sense of the flow of a line, when I have screwed up a verse with a loud clunk, I open this collection and my way forward becomes clear. She wasn’t one for confessing, indeed went out of her way to hide herself, so many of the poems are seemingly observational (The Moose and The Waiting Room) whilst staying in the first person. One Art is probably the most famous poem here, a tight villanelle, and there are many other joys. but it’s her invisible techniques that keep bringing me back when I’ve had enough of Hughes and Larkin.
​

*Gareth Writer- Davies

Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2014 and 2017)
Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition (2015) and Prole Laureate for 2017
Commended in the Welsh Poetry Competition (2015) and Highly Commended in 2017
Hawthornden Fellow (2019).
 
Publications: 
"Bodies" (2015)  "Cry Baby" (2017) via Indigo Dreams

https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gareth-writer-davies/4587920255
https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gwdcrybaby/4594091370
 
"The Lover's Pinch" (2018) The End (2019)  Via Arenig Press
 
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-lovers-pinch/
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-end-gareth-writer-davies/
​

When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Gail Sequeira for No 8 in the series. She writes:

I was born in Bombay and grew up primarily in Bombay and Delhi. Both cities have had a profound impact on my life, my reading and my cooking. My first menu for the Comfort Kitchen, the small scale cantina which I opened recently with my husband Kevin in Brecon, Wales,  was inspired by both cities: kababs and rajma from Delhi, and to finish off,  a delicate sweet coconut dessert inspired by tender coconut ice cream made famous by Natural's of Bombay.

​

​The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This book is no easy read in a sense, even though it flows like water running downhill. The subject matter is very personal for me, being an Indian woman, and it ripped my carefully sheltered life apart at the seams. This is the moment in my own history I began to question the status quo.

​The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
 
This one is a beautiful tapestry of intertwining lives. It’s hard to describe, the main characters are so very diverse! There’s an illegal immigrant in America, the remainder of old colonials in the Himalayas. A fascinating and heart wrenching read.

Five Point Someone by Chetan Bharat
 
This is a coming of age story set in one of the most prestigious campuses in India. It’s nostalgic and sweet and it captures Indian childhood and young adulthood in a way that hasn’t been done before.

Bombay Rains Bombay Girls by Anirban Bose
 
There is no city in the world like Bombay! This one tells the story of a small town boy who moved to Bombay for medical school. It’s like opening a window into an aspect of Bombay life the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience and a very nostalgic read for someone who grew up there.

Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan
 
This is the first of three books about the five Thakur sisters, growing up in a lovely old neighbourhood in Delhi. The word ’pricey’ is slang for high maintenance. And besides a strong storyline, this book speaks in the language of the people and of the times. It captures the change in Indian society as the economy opened up. It’s just a beautiful read.

When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Owen Williams for No 7 in the series:  

Owen grew up as an only child in Talbot Green (Llantrisant ) where his father worked as an  electrician. The family background was in farming in the Vale of Glamorgan. He studied Creative Design at Loughborough University, specialising in Furniture Design, and after a  post graduate diploma in Technology (now an MA/MSc) at Swansea Met, he taught Design and Technology. He also worked professionally in theatre lighting, and for many years has also provided both lighting, and a huge variety of props, to local amateur theatre and dance companies in and around Brecon.

Owen's interests also include motorcycling, amateur radio (he holds an advanced licence) and poetry, and he has recently been included in Onward/Ymlaen, an anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Wales. 

​The Boy Electrician by Armac


This is the first book I ever bought and about the only book I read for pleasure when at secondary school (having dyslexia didn't help).

​​


Dylan Thomas: ​The Poems

This is the first book I bought when I arrived in Brecon. I fell in love with Thomas's writing after helping my dad stage-light a production of Under Milk Wood for a community project in the village of Gilfach Goch.

​Reminiscences of Motorcycling by 'Ixion'

I bought my first motorcycle at the age of sixteen and have loved them ever since. I studied engineering history for A level so was naturally interested in the history of motorcycle development. This book is about riding very early machines around the turn of the last century. Ixion (Canon Basil H Davies) was a motorcycling vicar and author. He started riding motorcycles in 1898 and wrote for The Motor Cycle magazine from 1903 to his death in 1961. This book was originally published in 1920. Interesting stuff for a geek!

, 


T S Eliot's Four Quartets


I'm not sure how I discovered Eliot but I do love the Quartets. I do have them published all together in a book however they were published first in pamphlet form in the early 1940s. My copies are early, though not first editions. Love the deckled edge paper.

Kilvert’s Diary
​
A glimpse into a forgotten Victorian world around Hay-on-Wye.

​Great fun to visit the locations of his entries. A world without cars, so lots of walking.

​​I'm a 22 year old aspiring author, published poet, bokar and future mad scientist, on the spectrum of neurodiversity. As the child of a Scot and a Hungarian immigrant in Germany, I spent most of my life moving around .Just like my ancestors, a restless traveller with an endless hunger for knowledge and stories. Libraries, especially the one in Brecon, have ever since I was a child been the only place to rest and to call home. Just another kid in love with Keats, Housman and Morse.

The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie 

If it weren't for a story on AO3 called Heart's at Peace (Grantchester TV), I would never have known of this book, let aside have contributed four more stories on said page.

Robert Kendall, no offence to Morse, had captured my heart with his wit within a tick.

The book isn't about him though.

​It's about young Sidney Chambers'  journey to become the brilliant, cheeky vicar and part time detective he's known and loved for in the Grantchester mysteries. They are alright too, just not as marvellous as Road to Grantchester.

The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
(The Inspector Morse mysteries #13)

It's one of those slow Thursday afternoons in 2019; it's raining cats and dogs as I wait for my friend Alex in the shadow of the library. She has just returned from London with this treasure in her bag. Judging from the preserves poppy and bus ticket it must have been May.

It is the last case for my beloved Inspector Morse, the last hurrah in a long life as a terrific detective. Why choose this book knowing the ending from afar? Cause it's so light... Like Lewis' kiss in Chapter 77. It is not one of your average quick solved murder cases, in fact a rather haunting tale, filled with lots of obstacles, that lingers on.

My favourite chapter (73) begins with a quote from Keats. The last time we get to experience everything we love about Morse before his light fades.Morse resonates to me on a deeper level. Two souls alike divided by ink and paper. In the aftermath of finishing this book I wrote a requiem poem on the steps of the Bodleian library. "A remorseful day" appeared  about two months after that rainy Thursday afternoon in the Brecon Beacons.

Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian
(The Aubrey-Maturin saga #2) 

Nothing beats a good cup of tea and an Age of Sail story on a rainy afternoon. The Aubrey Maturin books have just the right amount of wit, action, in combination of history. 

Lucky Jack Aubrey , my name patron, isn't yet the Captain of his beloved HMS Surprise but just a mere Commander. Alongside his companion, the faithful Irish-Catalan Doctor Stephen Maturin, Jack spends the brief period of the Peace of Amiens (1802-1803) in the countryside, hunting and courting. My favourite quote: "Anyone would think you were married to that man", captures their unique bond perfectly. Hornblower's Indefatigable makes a cameo appearance too.

Unlike the rest of the series, they spend a lot of their time on shore. Here we get to see a different Jack Aubrey. Courageous in battle, embracing every storm like it's a soft breeze, but here he is oh so awkward on shore. The follow up book HMS Surprise has its prime moments too, with a drunk sloth, so I highly recommend reading this one after.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

An angel and a demon, knowing each other for the better half of some centuries, have to save the world only to realise they are each other's world. Armageddon was trying to happen (or well, trying to be prevented) at the wrong place with the wrong anti-Christ as the result of a lot of funny misunderstandings.

When Tilly, one of those magic ethereal beings called librarians, introduced me to the wonderfulness that is Good Omens and handed me their copy, I would never have guessed that I would end up travelling one day as Aziraphale across countries to conventions.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice 

"I'm going to give you a chance I never had..."

When Lestat spoke those words for the first time, I was 10 and had sneaked into the living room past my bed time where my siblings were watching the movie. Several days later I held the copy of the book in my hands and was dragged into the world of the glorious Lestat de Lioncourt and his melancholy companion Louis.

Claudia was my favourite character back then. She had lost her mother to the plague, which was wiping out whole families in New Orleans at that time, and got turned into a vampire by Lestat as a gift for Louis.
​
The New Orleans chapter with Lestat and Louis being fathers to their own love child is still my favourite part of the novel, although Claudia isn't my favourite character anymore. Loss and years of experience changes people and I guess that's why nowadays I prefer Louis. The book isn't everyone's cup of tea. Yet whoever is into real, not sparkling, vampires might actually enjoy this piece of Eden.

​I grew up on the border between England and Wales, then went to study Zoology at Cambridge University, followed by Psychology at St Andrews. I am now a hypnotherapist and mindful movement/dance teacher, and part-time poet and crafter. I love and am greatly influenced by the natural world, myths and legends, and the complex connection between people, our bodies, and nature. Having recently started attempting to write my own novel, I have a renewed respect for those authors whose books I have read and enjoyed! I have so many favourite books it was a real challenge to get it down to just five, but here they are…

​

​Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

This is one of those books that is equally enchanting for adults as it is for children. I love how Michelle Paver has captured the essence of what it might be like to live in the forests of our hunter-gatherer past, where humans lived in more spiritual connection with the natural world. She has employed extensive and thorough research, making Torak and Wolf’s world come alive as they search for the Mountain of the World Spirit on a quest to slay the demon bear. The first in a book series I come back to time and time again.

​If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie

​I remember when I first read this thinking that a copy should be given to every girl at school (then revising this to include boys too). It explores the connection between women and the land, and the journey to finding a sense of belonging in the modern corporate ‘wasteland’, gaining inspiration from Celtic myths as well as contemporary women who have found ways of living more rooted lives. It has been described as a Celtic ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, though in my opinion it is much better, easier to read, and more relevant to life in the UK.

The Mabinogion translation by Sioned Davies

This book is a collection of truly wonderful and magical stories from ancient Wales, which take place both in this world and the Celtic Otherworld. I have a particular love of the 4th branch, the story of Lleu and Blodeuwedd: I have studied it thoroughly, through multiple layers of meaning, and it has made a huge impression on my life. I also highly recommend Damh the Bard’s musical interpretations (find them here: www.paganmusic.co.uk).

A Brief History of Nakedness by Philip Carr-Gomm

​This book takes the reader on a journey that spans from ancient religious sadhus all the way to contemporary pagans, advertisers and protesters, exploring and tracing humans’ sometimes bizarre, sometimes touching, and often complex, relationships with our naked bodies. I found it both entertaining and enlightening - not only informative and thought-provoking, but also a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Instrumental by James Rhodes

This is not an easy book to read, but one I bought a second copy of - to lend out to others so they could read it too. Both an autobiography and a love letter to music, the book tells of how music was a lifeline to Rhodes as he faced a childhood full of unspeakable trauma, and how, against all the odds, he pursued his passion to become a renowned concert pianist. A remarkable man. Hear him play here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ82pECqiUg.

A side-effect of the current Covid-19 lockdown, and admittedly a very high-class problem, is our growing hair, and the likelihood of not getting to the hairdresser's any time soon! The only other similar situation that comes to mind is that of the residents of the village of Oberammergau in Passion Play* year, which, incidentally has, along with so many other events, been postponed.

I, along with one of my five brothers, and my son, were all blessed with the same unusually thick hair. I recall at Hastings College in the early 1970s, I spent a whole hour in the student common room merrily braiding my long hair in tiny plaits. The problem was that my sister-in-law, who I was emulating, had very fine hair, and used this method to plump hers up. When I undid mine in the changing room, I found I had something that verged on a giant Afro, and I crept home praying that no-one would see me.

My son has now resorted to buying a pair of clippers, and my daughter-in-law has done a good job. But I don't think I can risk it, as Cell Block H is not currently casting, and that's certainly the look I'd end up with. That or Magwitch on a bad day.

Two salutory tales:

When really quite small, I found a pair of interesting large scissors (wallpaper scissors I later discovered) in our laundry room (I also found a pack of Robin starch which I innocently fed to the birds, but that's another story). I thought it might be a good idea to cut my hair, as I truly loathed hairdresser visits. However, when I regarded my work in a mirror, it must have struck me that it didn't look too great, as I went and put on my swimming-cap and went out to play for the day. Tea-time came, and Mum stood me on the kitchen table for a strip-wash. When she asked me to take that silly hat off, I refused, at which point she removed it herself, and, viewing the results, gave me a good slap on the legs. The next day I was escorted to Dieter Henri's Salon up the Moor to have a corrective cut, no doubt with the habitual frown on my face!

A few years on, in the late sixties, my brother Jonny came down to the kitchen, where I and other members of the family were gathered, in his Vespa scooter crash-helmet. 

"Why are you wearing your crash-helmet, Jonny?"

"Erm, well, I've been cutting my hair with my new clippers."

"Yeah, so ...?"

"Well, erm, I've cut it a bit short..."

Chuckles from us, as he was a bit of a joker, and we thought this was one of his japes.

"No, really - if I take it off, you won't laugh, will you?"

"Course not," sympathetically.

"Promise?"

"Yeah, we won't laugh, honestly."

At which point my hapless brother removed his helmet to reveal a convict-like dome, resembling nothing so much as a newly-mown striped lawn. And this was in the days long before males in every walk of life went round with virtually shaven heads.

Poor Jonny. We fell about, screaming with mocking laughter.  And for some weeks afterwards, he was to be seen about the streets of Cranbrook sporting a woolly bobble-hat, until his hair grew back.

So be warned!

*​http://www.judithjohnson.co.uk/blog/the-passion-play-of-oberammergau

In this really excellent epistolatory novel, von Arnim lays out Fraulein Schmidt’s thoughts and  a whole cast of beautifully-drawn characters so skilfully, using the device of a one-sided correspondence  ie Fraulein Schmidt’s letters to Mr Anstruther. It was published in 1907, seven years before the First World War must have put a temporary stop to young English gentlemen travelling to Germany to learn the language and culture.

I loved reading this, and  will definitely be recommending it not only to friends but also possibly laying in a copy for my baby granddaughters for some future reading. Yes, it’s that good!

*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/tories-libraries-social-mobility-conservative