 | The Lord of the Rings (3 Book Box set) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Buy new: £11.52 / Used from: £14.88 The one and only, musn't be forgotten
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 | Anna Karenina (Wordsworth Classics) by L.N. Tolstoy
Buy new: £1.99 / Used from: £0.01 Tolstoy's best book, making it one of the best novels ever. Tolstoy's ability with character is unparalleled
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 | War and Peace (Wordsworth Classics) by L.N. Tolstoy
Buy used from: £0.01 So many characters, all so vividly realised, so long you can't hold it properly
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 | Q: Dance of Death by Luther Blissett
Buy new: £1.10 / Used from: £1.10 No he's not a footballer, 4 italian weirdos have written the most amazing book I have read for years.
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 | Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 Another Italian, much less weird, but even more learned. The first and only conspiracy book I have ever read. This got me into Templars in a big way. This man has too many things in his head.
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 | The Name of the Rose (Harvest in Translation) by Umberto Eco
Buy used from: £0.45 Same guy, same learning, makes you wonder about philosophy in new ways.
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 | Divine Comedy, the by Dante Alighieri
Buy used from: £9.46 Dante has such beautiful imagery, it makes you rue the fact that you could never ever write anything at all.
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 | 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Buy new: £9.86 / Used from: £4.00 The ultimate in paranoia, an essential for futurists and still very very valid, hello America
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 | The Templars by Piers Paul Read
Buy used from: £0.20 An excellent introduction to Templars, very readable and covers just about everything that really happened (despite those quacks out there). If you want to read more, look for Malcolm Barber
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 | Ivanhoe (Penguin Popular Classics) by Sir Walter Scott
Buy new: £1.80 / Used from: £0.01 Bad Templar, evil Templar, they are such scum
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 | Baudolino by Umberto Eco
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 Eco does very very funny. If you've ever read John Mandeville, this book is up your street.
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 | The Idiot (Wordsworth Classics) by F.M. Dostoevsky
Buy new: £1.89 / Used from: £0.01 Dostoevsky's best book. Not as dark and claustrophobic as crime & Punishment, but all of Dostoevsky's art is still there
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 | Crime and Punishment (Oxford World's Classics) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Buy new: £3.88 / Used from: £1.20 Dark, ominous, oppressive, magnificent
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 | The Brothers Karamazov (Everyman's Library Classics) by F.M. Dostoevsky
Buy new: £8.44 / Used from: £7.00 Dostoevsky takes a more esoteric turn, looking at spiritual matters, but with still the same psychological drive as crime & punishment
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 | The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) by Herodotus
Buy new: £18.86 / Used from: £5.00 This guy is the father of history, and people actually believed everything he wrote, it was even used in universities until recently as factual basis. Still an essential source
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 | Hellenica: History of My Times (Penguin Classics) by Xenophon
Buy new: £4.31 / Used from: £3.27 Another essential greek historian. Unfortunately I've not got round to reading other essentials like Thucydides and Cicero, but I will do.
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 | Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory
The definitive Arthur fable. Plodding at times, a very repetitive, but this is the man who started the romance of Arthur.
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 | The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Buy new: £6.49 / Used from: £1.11 And this book is the most alluring Arthur story ever. Characters are sympathetic and very much alive.
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 | Don Quixote (Penguin Classics) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Buy used from: £3.51 Muy muy triste, a very sad and beautiful story. If only I could read in Spanish
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 | Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £3.50 Salman Rushdie does more for english than any other author. Very delightful
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