This is a list of some of the books, films and albums that have had the greatest influence on the way I think and feel, or that I have simply enjoyed.
Books: Classics
The Odyssey, Homer
Metamorphoses, Ovid
The Book of Margery Kempe
A Revelation of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich
Selected Poems, William Blake
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
Dubliners, James Joyce
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Ripening Seed, Colette
A Very Easy Death, Simone de Beauvoir
Moderato Cantabile, Marguerite Duras
Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai
The Famished Road, Ben Okri
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Storyteller, Mario Vargas Llosa
Plays: Classics
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
The Oresteia, Aeschylus
The Bacchae, Euripides
The Spanish Tragedy, Kyd
Hamlet, Shakespeare
Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
Saint Joan, Bernard Shaw
Waiting For Godot, Samuel Beckett
Top Girls, Caryl Churchill
A Taste of Honey, Shelagh Delaney
Books: Contemporary
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier
Veronika Decides To Die, Paolo Coelho
The Witch of Portobello, Paolo Coelho
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
The Blasphemer, Nigel Farndale
Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Holy Fools, Joanne Harris
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
Homestead, Rosina Lippi
Galileo’s Daughter, Dava Sobel
The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Films
The Godfather Part I (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Accused (1988)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
The Piano (1993)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Braveheart (1995)
Titanic (1997)
Gladiator (2000)
Moulin Rouge (2001)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-3)
Kill Bill (2003)
Avatar (2009)
Albums
Legend: The Very Best of Bob Marley (1984)
The Joshua Tree, U2 (1987)
Crowded House, Crowded House (1987)
Strangeways, Here We Come, The Smiths (1987)
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, The Cure (1987)
The Cream of Eric Clapton (1987)
Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman (1988)
Gypsy Kings, Gypsy Kings (1988)
Out of Time, REM (1991)
In Utero, Nirvana (1993)
Definitely Maybe, Oasis (1994)
Parklife, Blur (1994)
Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette (1995)
OK Computer, Radiohead (1997)
Ray of Light, Madonna (1998)
The Man Who, Travis (1999)
Parachutes, Coldplay (2000)
Just Enough Education to Perform, Stereophonics (2001)
A New Day At Midnight, David Gray (2002)
Elephunk, Black Eyed Peas (2003)
In Between Dreams, Jack Johnson (2005)
The Very Best of Nina Simone (2006)
The Boy With No Name, Travis (2007)
As I Am, Alicia Keys (2007)
Viva La Vida, Coldplay (2008)
