 | The Magus by John Fowles
Buy used from: £0.22 Stunning; I read it over a weekend and it was unforgettable. It conjures a real sense of mystery in the Ancient Greek tradition.
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 | Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Buy used from: £7.50 Peculiar stuff - don't read it while sitting in a car passenger seat!
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 | Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Buy new: £6.73 / Used from: £1.80 Conspiracies abound in this complex tale of mystery cults.
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 | Headlong by Michael Frayn
Buy new: £6.36 / Used from: £0.01 Apparently mundane yet absorbingly told. I was delighted by this particular book.
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 | On the Black Hill (Vintage classics) by Bruce Chatwin
Buy new: £4.98 / Used from: £0.01 More supreme writing from Bruce Chatwin. An absorbing and touching tale.
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 | Rascal by Sterling North
Buy used from: £9.00 This book is vastly under-rated. As a 7yr old reading this, it brought home to me the emotional impact that a book could have on it's reader.
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 | Beside the Ocean of Time by George Mackay Brown
Buy new: £6.69 / Used from: £0.01 The Orkney Bard with a tale involving a broad sweep through history, seen and heard from the eyes of a young lad growing up.
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 | Greenmantle (Penguin Modern Classics) by John Buchan
Buy used from: £0.01 Set back in during the First World War, Richard Hannay of 39 Steps fame, leaps into action to prevent a Jihaad. Has curious parallels with the world situation today.
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 | Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Buy used from: £3.76 Once you get acquainted with the Russian names and their forms, this book is an absolute pleasure. Treasure every chapter.
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 | The Arcanum: Extraordinary True Story of the Invention of European Porcelain by Janet Gleeson
Buy new: £8.49 / Used from: £0.01 The Space Race of it's time, the challenge to discover the secret of porcelain glazing. These seemingly trivial subjects often give a surprising new perspectives on history in a larger scale.
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 | The "39 Steps" (British Film Guides) by Mark Glancy
Buy new: £12.34 / Used from: £7.17 The classic adventure novel. Concise yet complete, the tension of pre-WW1 Europe seeps through as Hannay struggles in vain to prevent the slide into conflict.
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 | Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
Buy new: £6.72 / Used from: £0.01 A book that perhaps should be read more than once although I gave up early on the second time round. Rewarding so I shall try again.
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 | Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Buy new: £6.96 / Used from: £3.91 From bananas to V2 rockets to Monte-Carlo statistics. Undoubtedly inspired. Irvine Welsh liked it so much he borrowed some of it.
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 | How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
Buy new: £4.76 / Used from: £0.21 Alain de Botton rattles off an erudite and engaging synopsis of Proust's epic work.
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 | The Naked Sun (Robot Series) by Isaac Asimov
Buy new: £4.48 / Used from: £0.01 This work doesn't deserve to be pigeon holed under Science Fiction. A story of dislocation and phobia on one level, a moral whodunnit on another.
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 | Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?: The novel which became 'Blade Runner' (S.F. Masterworks) by Philip K. Dick
Buy new: £4.83 / Used from: £2.00 Not easy to justice to this in less than 200 words wthout lapsing into cliches. Quite breathtaking in it's vision of a world where technology has both enhanced and destroyed.
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 | American Tabloid by James Ellroy
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £2.59 This is a scorching novel and leaves the Kennedy myth somewhat singed in it's pseudo-fictional account. Some of the vernacular can be a bit puzzling but you get there in the end.
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