A break from movies - 40 Books to read before you're 40

Realising, of course, that I’m 4 years shy of being an expert here.

Realising further, that they come from the top of my head and that the list would change if I wrote it again tomorrow. . .

Almost finally realising that there are lots of series in this list. You don’t have to read all of them, but I always read series in order.

Finally realising that there is no order to these beyond the order they were dredged from my memory.

1.     Lord of the Rings – there, I did it. Deal with it. Ha!

2.     Magician – Raymond E. Feist. The companion  series to this – Servant of the Empire etc by Janny Wurtz is worth it too.

3.     My Year of Meat – Ruth Ozeki

4.     The Stand – Stephen King

5.     Tess of the D’urbervilles – Thomas Hardy. It’s a classic, but it has a modern feel to it.

6.     The Years of Rice and Salt – Kim Stanley Robinson

7.     The Otherland Series – Tad Williams

8.     The Discworld Series – Terry Pratchett (he’s literally a god) but my favourites are: Reaper Man, Small Gods, Interesting Times and Lords and Ladies.

9.     The Dresden Files – Jim Butcher – urban fantasy at its best

10. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiel Hammett. Before the movies and the ripoffs came the book. Go for it!

11. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne (and all his other stuff)

12. The Bible – various. I don’t care how atheistic you are, nobody can get by in western society without knowledge of the references in this book.

13. Anno Dracula – Kim Newman – I’ve never read anything by Newman that I haven’t liked.

14. The Muddleheaded Wombat – Ruth Park. A childhood without Wombat, Tedda, Mouse and Tab is a childhood half lived.

15. Odd Thomas – Dean Koontz. Koontz is a poetic writer of popular horror fiction. The Odd Thomas books are less horror and therefore a good recommendation for those that don’t need horror in their lives.

16. Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras – Scott Westerfeld. He’s a teen fiction writer who is so much better than so many adult writers out there.

17. Mother Goose’s book of nursery rhymes – nominally by “Mother Goose” – pop culture necessity

18. Grimm’s Fairy Tales – although if you can find some more original works, you’ll have a better read – Perrault’s Red Riding Hood is much grimmer than Grimm’s.

19. The Wheel of Time – Robert Jordan. I loved the first 7 books and the last 3. . .

20. The Power of One – Bryce Courtney – will be read for centuries to come.

21. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – easy to read, lots in it

22. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller – I loved this book

23. One flew over the cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey – don’t read anything else he’s read, but definitely read this one.

24. Harry Potter – JK Rowling – I don’t care how pretentious you are, these are good books, good stories, with good characters that the author obviously cares about.

25. Anything by Jasper Fforde – although my favourites are the Thursday Next series and the Nursery Crime series.

26. The Brentford “Trilogy” by Robert Rankin. Then keep reading

27. American Gods – Neil Gaiman (I’ll cheat here and call Anansi Boys part of this series – but you can read it alone and it’s a much funnier book).

28. Good Omens – Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

29. The Talisman – Stephen King and Peter Straub

30. The Dark Tower series – Stephen King

31. Imajica – Clive Barker -  incredibly graphic, sensual and disturbing, with the best descriptions of things that don’t exist ever and an interesting Jesus myth to boot.

32. His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman – atheist and master craftsman. Go for it.

33. A brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking – short book, very enlightening.

34. Tuesdays with Morrie – Mitch Albom – although the movie is a very good adaptation .

35. Ender chronicles – Orson Scott Card

36. Alvin Maker series – Orson Scott Card

37. Wicked – Gregory Maguire

38. The Book Thief – Markus Zuzak

39. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon – did you know this was a Sherlock Holmes reference?

40. The Red Dwarf Books – Rob Grant and Doug Naylor and Grant Naylor –

I feel really bad about all of the books I left out – Leon Uris, Tom Holt, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Sara Douglass, JM Barrie – but really, I’ve concentrated on books that I might recommend that others wouldn’t. You already know what’s good out there people. Now GO AND READ SOMETHING.