My Desert Island Ten: Fiction

The books I’d happily get lost in again

Ten works of fiction. One author per selection. A lifetime of reading. And some surprisingly difficult decisions.

During a conversation with my mate Mike (https://reprog.wordpress.com/) about favourite books, he challenged me about which ten I would take to a desert island.

I’m deliberately restricting this list to fiction. There are works of history, biography and other non-fiction that I would hate to be without, but they deserve a separate discussion. For now, I’m interested in stories, characters and imaginary worlds — particularly those I would happily revisit again and again.

It sounds simple enough. After all, most of us have books we particularly love. But the more I thought about it, the more complicated it became.

What exactly makes a favourite book?

Is it the finest piece of literature you’ve read? The most exciting story? The book that had the greatest impact on your life? Or simply one you can happily pick up and read for the fifth or sixth time?

I think these are very different things.

There are books I admire enormously but have no particular desire to read again. There are books that have profoundly affected me but whose worlds I wouldn’t particularly want to revisit. And there are books that might not win many literary prizes but which I can disappear into for hours.

For me, reading is, above all, an opportunity to escape into another world.

That doesn’t necessarily mean fantasy. It might be Victorian London, an Oxford college, a Fenland village, nineteenth-century France or the murky corridors of British intelligence.

What matters is that, for a while, I can leave the everyday world behind and become part of something different.

I remember listening to Margery Allingham’s The Tiger in the Smoke in the car and, having arrived at my destination, sitting there waiting for the chapter to finish. I simply didn’t want to leave the story.

That, to me, is the mark of wonderful storytelling.

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The rules

We have a rule between us when choosing favourite albums or singles: only one selection per artist.

Otherwise, the Beatles have an unfortunate tendency to take over.

I’ve applied the same principle here. One author per selection, which means no Harry Potter alongside Strike, and no Three Musketeers alongside The Count of Monte Cristo.

I’ve also been a little generous with series. Where a continuing series forms a single fictional world, I am allowing myself the set. If the desert-island authorities object, I’ve nominated one or two individual volumes.

These aren’t necessarily the ten greatest works of fiction ever written. They’re the ten I would most like to have with me.

So, in reverse order…

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10. The Innocence of Father Brown

G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton’s Father Brown is one of the most unusual detectives in fiction.

Where Sherlock Holmes relies on observation and deduction, Father Brown approaches crime through his understanding of human nature.

He understands why people do terrible things, often because he can imagine himself in their position.

It’s a rather different kind of detective brilliance.

The stories are also wonderfully written. Chesterton delights in paradox, wit and turning apparently obvious truths upside down.

The Blue Cross, The Queer Feet and The Invisible Man are particular favourites, and the collection contains some extraordinarily inventive mysteries.

What makes them so enjoyable is that they operate on several levels. You can read them simply as detective stories, but there’s often a philosophical or moral question underneath.

Chesterton also has a marvellous ability to make the ordinary seem extraordinary.

A London street, a restaurant, a garden or a railway journey can suddenly become the setting for something deeply mysterious.

Why take it to the island?

Because remembering the solution does not exhaust these stories. The pleasure remains in Chesterton’s prose, humour and understanding of human behaviour.

Father Brown himself remains a quietly surprising companion.

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9. Inspector Morse

Colin Dexter

Morse is one of those detectives who becomes more enjoyable because of his imperfections.

He’s intelligent, irritable, occasionally pompous, fond of beer, classical music and crosswords, and quite capable of becoming spectacularly convinced of something that turns out to be wrong.

And that’s part of his charm.

Unlike detectives who appear to know the answer almost from the beginning, Morse frequently follows the wrong trail.

He makes assumptions, changes his mind, and occasionally allows his personal prejudices to interfere with his reasoning.

His relationship with Lewis is another enormous pleasure. The contrast between Morse’s intellectual pretensions and Lewis’s practical common sense gives the books much of their humour.

Then there’s Oxford.

I lived in Oxford while the television series was being filmed and occasionally watched the filming taking place.

That gives the books a particular personal resonance. I can picture the streets, colleges and pubs, and there’s a pleasure in returning to a place I once knew.

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn was my introduction to Dexter, and I still have a particular affection for it. Its examination-board setting, academic rivalries and intricate mystery are quintessential Morse.

The Wench Is Dead is an equally strong contender. Morse, confined to hospital, attempts to solve a nineteenth-century murder using historical records and deduction.

It’s a wonderfully entertaining premise.

Why take it to the island?

For the puzzles, the humour and the chance to walk through Dexter’s Oxford again.

And because Morse is much better company on the page than he probably would be in person.

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8. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John le Carré

There are spy thrillers, and then there’s John le Carré.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an extraordinary novel, partly because so little happens in the conventional thriller sense.

There are no endless car chases or spectacular explosions.

Instead, George Smiley attempts to identify a Soviet mole at the highest levels of British intelligence through conversations, documents, memories and the painstaking reconstruction of events.

And it’s utterly gripping.

Le Carré creates a world with its own language, traditions, hierarchies and history.

The Circus feels like a real institution, populated by people whose relationships, ambitions and resentments have developed over decades.

One of the things I particularly enjoy is that the reader is not given everything neatly explained.

You have to pay attention.

A seemingly unimportant conversation or an apparently incidental detail may turn out to be crucial.

And knowing the outcome doesn’t spoil the experience. On rereading, you notice things you missed before.

There’s also something deeply melancholy about Smiley himself: an extraordinarily intelligent man whose understanding of human weakness is inseparable from his own disappointments.

Why take it to the island?

Because it is both a superb novel and a compelling mystery.

The Circus is intricate enough to sustain years of investigation.

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7. The Tiger in the Smoke

Margery Allingham

I’ve always enjoyed the Golden Age detective writers.

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham all created worlds that are enormously pleasurable to revisit.

Ngaio Marsh is particularly interesting because her fictional world barely seems to change as the decades pass.

Even when her books reach the 1960s and 1970s, there are still country houses, titled families, servants and elaborate social conventions, long after much of that society had largely disappeared.

But that’s part of the pleasure.

Allingham, however, could be considerably darker.

The Tiger in the Smoke is a remarkable novel, set in a fog-bound, post-war London that feels threatening almost from the first page.

Although Albert Campion appears, this is much more than a conventional Campion mystery.

It’s an atmospheric thriller with a genuinely disturbing villain, a strong sense of moral conflict and an extraordinary feeling of menace.

Allingham makes London itself part of the story.

The fog, the streets, the damaged city and its inhabitants create a world that feels simultaneously familiar and dangerous.

And then there’s my experience of listening to it in the car and refusing to get out until the chapter finished.

I can’t think of a better recommendation.

Why take it to the island?

Because it demonstrates storytelling’s ability to take possession of the reader.

Few novels shut out the outside world so completely.

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6. The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

What a story.

If someone were to ask me for an example of magnificent, extravagant, irresistible storytelling, The Count of Monte Cristo would be near the top of the list.

Betrayal, imprisonment, escape, treasure, revenge, love, political intrigue and an extraordinarily elaborate plot.

And somehow Dumas makes it all work.

Edmond Dantès begins as a young man with a promising future, only to have everything taken from him.

His subsequent transformation into the mysterious Count is one of the great journeys in fiction.

But the book is much more than a revenge story.

It asks what happens when someone acquires almost unlimited power to punish those who have wronged him.

At what point does justice become vengeance?

And what happens to the person carrying it out?

Dumas is also a master of narrative construction.

Characters and events that initially appear unrelated gradually become part of an extraordinary web.

The novel was originally published in instalments, and that heritage is apparent in its constant twists, revelations and cliffhangers.

It’s an enormous book, but one that rewards the time invested.

Why take it to the island?

Because Dumas offers a vast, intricate adventure in which to lose oneself.

And, frankly, if I’m going to be stranded somewhere, having a very long book seems sensible.

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5. The Nine Tailors

Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers is one of my favourite detective writers, although I have slightly mixed feelings about the development of Lord Peter Wimsey.

In the earlier novels, Peter is entertainingly eccentric, occasionally ridiculous and not always particularly admirable.

As the series progresses, particularly through his relationship with Harriet Vane, I sometimes feel Sayers becomes rather too fond of her creation.

By the later books, Peter is almost impossibly accomplished.

I suspect Sayers had fallen a little in love with him herself.

Gaudy Night is a remarkable literary achievement, but I think some of the earlier books are better detective stories.

And The Nine Tailors may be the best combination of the two.

Set in a Fenland village, the novel revolves around church bells, bell-ringing, a mysterious death and a wonderfully realised rural community.

The setting is extraordinary.

You can almost feel the cold, the isolation of the Fens, the church and the rhythms of village life.

The technical detail about change-ringing is fascinating, even when it becomes rather demanding.

But what makes the novel exceptional is the way the mystery grows naturally out of its setting.

The church, the bells and the people are not simply background decoration.

They are fundamental to the story.

Why take it to the island?

Because the writing, the Fenland setting and the mystery are inseparable from one another.

It’s a detective novel that achieves something considerably greater than simply identifying a murderer.

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4. Strike

J. K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith

This was a difficult choice because it meant leaving Harry Potter behind.

And I love Hogwarts.

Rowling’s achievement in creating a world that millions of readers want to inhabit is extraordinary.

I would distinguish between great storytelling and great literature, however.

Tolkien is a great literary writer. C. S. Lewis combines great storytelling with considerable literary accomplishment.

Rowling’s particular genius, I think, is storytelling.

Her ability to construct complicated narratives, create memorable characters, develop relationships and keep readers turning pages is exceptional.

And in the Strike novels, that ability has developed considerably.

Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott are wonderfully realised characters.

Their professional partnership, personal histories, frustrations and developing relationship give the series an emotional depth that extends far beyond the individual investigations.

And the mysteries themselves are increasingly ambitious.

If I had to choose a single volume, I’d struggle between two.

Troubled Blood is probably my favourite as a detective novel.

It’s an intricate cold-case investigation, full of clues, competing theories, unreliable recollections and the gradual reconstruction of events.

The reader is invited to participate in the investigation rather than simply wait for the answer.

The Running Grave, by contrast, is an extraordinary thriller.

The tension, particularly during Robin’s undercover investigation, is almost unbearable at times.

It’s a very different reading experience, but equally compelling.

Why take it to the island?

Ideally, I would take the whole series.

The cases would occupy me, but the continuing lives of Strike and Robin would keep me returning.

And if I’m being honest, choosing Strike means that somewhere in the distance, Hogwarts is waving goodbye rather sadly.

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3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle

First published as a collection: 1892
Original publisher: George Newnes
The twelve stories originally appeared in The Strand Magazine, 1891–1892.

I want to be quite specific about this selection.

Not the complete Sherlock Holmes canon.

Not The Hound of the Baskervilles, wonderful though it is.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. That particular collection.

Because I think it contains some of Doyle’s most satisfying detective writing.

One criticism I have of certain Holmes stories is that the detective brilliance is sometimes rather less impressive than we’re told it is.

Holmes produces a remarkable solution, but occasionally relies on information the reader hasn’t been given or on specialist knowledge that makes the deduction almost impossible to anticipate.

That’s entertaining, but it’s not necessarily a satisfying detective puzzle.

The best stories in The Adventures are different.

We’re given observations, clues, misleading information and opportunities to reach our own conclusions.

Then Holmes explains the solution, and much of it follows logically from evidence we’ve already encountered.

The Red-Headed League is a wonderful example.

An apparently absurd situation gradually reveals an entirely rational criminal purpose.

The Blue Carbuncle is another favourite, with its wonderful Christmas atmosphere, delightful characterisation and Holmes’s unexpectedly humane response to the culprit.

And The Speckled Band is an exceptionally atmospheric mystery, even if aspects of its solution are scientifically questionable.

But there’s something else.

Holmes and Watson are simply wonderful company.

The sitting room at Baker Street, the fire, the tobacco smoke, the newspapers, the strange visitors and the sudden promise of adventure.

You know the world immediately.

Why take it to the island?

Because these stories let the reader investigate alongside two of literature’s most enduring characters.

Baker Street is a destination to which I could return indefinitely.

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2. The Chronicles of Narnia

C. S. Lewis

There are few fictional worlds that have stayed with me quite like Narnia.

Lewis achieves something remarkable.

His writing is often deceptively simple, yet it contains extraordinary imagination, emotional depth and philosophical significance.

The books work beautifully as adventures, but they also reward reading at different stages of life.

As a child, you can enjoy the magic, the talking animals, the battles, the journeys and the extraordinary idea that another world might exist just beyond an ordinary wardrobe.

As an adult, you notice rather more.

There are questions about courage, faith, loyalty, temptation, sacrifice, mortality and the nature of goodness.

And Lewis communicates these ideas without sacrificing the stories themselves.

I particularly admire his economy of language.

He can create an extraordinary atmosphere in a handful of sentences.

The arrival in Narnia, the winter landscape, Cair Paravel, the voyage of the Dawn Treader and the strange lands beyond the familiar world all have a vividness that stays with you.

There’s also something rather poignant about Narnia.

It’s a world that can be entered, left behind and rediscovered, but never entirely possessed.

Perhaps that’s part of its enduring appeal.

Why take it to the island?

Because Narnia does something very few books manage: it restores a sense of wonder.

Lewis achieves that without sacrificing either narrative excitement or literary depth.

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1. The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien

There was never much doubt about my number one.

For me, The Lord of the Rings is one of the great achievements of literature.

And I don’t mean simply fantasy literature.

Tolkien creates a world with such extraordinary depth that it feels as though the story we’re reading is merely one small episode in a much greater history.

There are languages, legends, poems, histories, cultures, landscapes and entire civilisations that seem to exist independently of the narrative.

Middle-earth feels real because Tolkien understands that a convincing world needs a past.

But what elevates the book beyond extraordinary world-building is the writing itself.

Tolkien’s language changes with the people and places he describes.

The homely conversations of the Shire are very different from the grandeur of Gondor, the ancient melancholy of the Elves or the darkness of Mordor.

And throughout the story runs a profound awareness of loss.

Victory does not mean that everything can be restored.

The world changes, beautiful things pass away, and even those who succeed may carry wounds that cannot entirely heal.

Yet the novel is also full of friendship, loyalty, courage, humour and hope.

And at its heart is something wonderfully understated: the idea that ordinary people, through decency and perseverance, can accomplish extraordinary things.

Sam Gamgee may be one of the greatest characters in literature.

Not because he’s powerful or particularly clever, but because he’s loyal, courageous and refuses to give up.

I also think Tolkien rewards rereading more than almost any other writer I know.

Each time, you notice something different.

A passage, a conversation, a reference to an earlier age or a moment of quiet sadness can acquire a significance you hadn’t appreciated before.

Why take it to the island?

Because Middle-earth seems inexhaustible.

Of all the imagined places I have encountered, it is the one in which I would most willingly dwell for years.

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The Substitutes Bench

Choosing ten means leaving out some remarkable books.

These four came particularly close.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell — Susanna Clarke

For me, probably the strongest fantasy novel written in Britain since Tolkien.

It feels less like a modern fantasy novel and more like a forgotten nineteenth-century classic that somebody accidentally discovered.

The footnotes, fictional scholarship, historical detail and wonderfully understated treatment of magic create an extraordinarily convincing alternative England.

It’s an immense literary achievement and could easily have made the main list.

Watership Down — Richard Adams

A wonderful premise: a rabbit society with its own language, mythology, history and political structures.

There’s some superb storytelling, and the world Adams creates is unforgettable.

But I have slightly mixed feelings about the book itself.

Some sections are extraordinary; others seem to drag.

I also wonder whether my memories of the film have become rather more vivid than my memories of the novel.

Perhaps it’s time to reread it.

Witness for the Prosecution — Agatha Christie

First published in magazine form as Traitor Hands in 1925; first collected in book form by Dodd, Mead & Company in 1933.

Christie was a genius at constructing mysteries, and Witness for the Prosecution contains one of her finest twists.

It’s a brilliant demonstration of how an author can encourage readers to reach entirely the wrong conclusion.

But there’s a problem with taking it to a desert island.

Once you know the twist, how many times can it work?

It’s still wonderfully constructed, but the first reading offers something that can never quite be repeated.

To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee

An extraordinary novel, beautifully written and deeply affecting.

Harper Lee creates a completely convincing world through Scout’s childhood perspective, while exploring prejudice, injustice, courage and moral responsibility.

Atticus Finch is one of fiction’s most memorable characters.

But I keep returning to the distinction between a book I admire and one I want to reread indefinitely.

To Kill a Mockingbird is unquestionably a book I value enormously.

I’m simply not sure I would want to spend years repeatedly returning to Maycomb.

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A Few Final Thoughts

Working through this list has made me think about what reading actually means to me.

I recently came across an observation in Stig Abell’s Things I Learned on the 6.28: A Guide to Daily Reading.

He describes attempting Moby-Dick as a teenager, finding it far too strange and abandoning it.

Returning to it in his thirties, he loved it.

I think that’s an important point.

Sometimes there is a time and place for a book.

A novel that leaves us cold at eighteen might become a favourite at forty.

Equally, something we adored when we were young might not survive rereading quite as successfully as we’d hoped.

The words have not altered, but the reader returning to them may be almost a different person.

There’s also a distinction between great literature and great storytelling.

Tolkien is, to me, a great literary writer.

Lewis combines literary accomplishment with extraordinary storytelling.

Rowling is a magnificent storyteller, even if I wouldn’t necessarily place her prose in the same literary category.

And Dumas demonstrates that the sheer ability to tell an irresistible story is itself a remarkable achievement.

But I don’t believe we should confuse literary reputation with personal enjoyment.

A book doesn’t have to be regarded as a masterpiece to become a favourite.

Nor does recognising something as a masterpiece mean we necessarily want to read it repeatedly.

Looking at my ten, I also notice how many involve mysteries.

Holmes, Father Brown, Wimsey, Morse, Strike and Smiley all invite us to uncover something hidden.

Perhaps that’s part of the attraction.

I enjoy books that allow the reader to participate: to observe, question, speculate and gradually discover the truth.

But the other common thread is the creation of a convincing world.

Middle-earth, Narnia, Baker Street, Oxford, the Fens, the Circus and nineteenth-century France are all places I can disappear into.

And perhaps that’s the simplest explanation of my choices.

The books I love most are those that make me forget, for a while, that I’m reading a book.

They allow me to leave the ordinary world behind and become part of another.

And when I reach the end, I sometimes wish I could stay a little longer.

That’s what makes them worth taking to a desert island.

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Over to You

I’d be interested to know what everyone else would choose.

Not necessarily the ten greatest books you’ve ever read, or the ten that have influenced you most.

Which ten works of fiction would you genuinely want to have with you if you could never read another novel or story?

And would you choose differently if you knew you were going to reread them for the next twenty years?

One author per selection, please.

Otherwise, we’ll end up with the literary equivalent of the Beatles occupying half the list.

And that would be cheating.

P.S. I still wish I could smuggle Hogwarts into the luggage.