If you have visited this blog on a Friday over the last two years there is a better than high chance you have met one of my many amazing guest curators of my Decades Library. Each week I am joined by a new guest who has agreed to help me assemble a new library of amazing books. My Ultimate Library – the Decades Library.

I explain to my guests that I hope my Library will offer the very best selections of books to its visitors. I ask them to nominate their favourite books or books which they consider unmissable. But when making those selections I ask that they follow two rules:

1 – You Can Select ANY Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

Sounds easy? I am told narrowing down five books is tricky. I am then told choosing one per decade makes it vexing. I won’t repeat what I am told when I enforce the five “consecutive” decades part of the rules. But we DO get some wonderful reading recommendations.

This week it is my very great pleasure to welcome James Oswald to Grab This Book. My blog began in 2014 and the very first book I chose to review was James’s Natural Causes. I have reviewed quite a few more of his books since then and they always delight, I couldn’t wait to see what titles he may recommend I add to my Library shelves.

DECADES

Who am I to be recommending books for such an illustrious library? Well, the dull stuff is that I am the author of some twenty books to date, including twelve Inspector McLean and three Con Fairchild crime fiction novels. I’ve also written the five part epic fantasy series, The Ballad of Sir Benfro, inspired by a decade living in mid Wales and learning about its history, mythology, language and culture. I self-published the first two Inspector McLean books because publishers didn’t like the mixing of Police Procedural with more supernatural overtones. They changed their minds when Natural Causes shifted a quarter of a million copies in eight months. The Penguin edition went on to be a Richard and Judy Book Club pick, and made the National Book Awards debut novel shortlist.  

The less dull stuff is that when not writing, I run a 350 acre livestock farm in North East Fife, where I raise pedigree Highland cattle. You’ll find regular updates and videos of the coos on my twitter feed – @SirBenfro. Everything else is on my website – jamesoswald.co.uk – when I remember to update it. 

And so to my recommendations… 

50s – Paul Gallico – Jennie (1950) 

I was loaned a copy of this book when I was about ten, while bored on a family holiday in Sutherland. I remember my mother being very insistent that I give it back once I was finished, so it’s slightly embarrassing to admit that forty-five years later I still have that very same copy. I can’t remember a lot of the details, save that it concerns a young boy who wakes up to find he has turned into a cat and is guided through the necessary learning of how to deal with this transformation by the eponymous Jennie. What I remember quite vividly is the feeling of being taken off to another world, such is the brilliance of Paul Gallico’s writing. The ending, which I won’t give away, was a painful return to dull reality. Perhaps my keeping a hold of the book was my subconscious not willing to completely let go of the fantasy, something I don’t think I ever really have done. 

60s – Robert A Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) 

Like most boys as they hit their teens, my reading dropped off a cliff. There were far too many more interesting things to do, and reading became tainted by the whiff of schoolwork, robbing it of much in the way of pleasure. Fortunately for me, I stumbled into reading comics, first with 2000AD and then what American comics I could lay my hands on. I also discovered SF novels, devouring the works of EE Doc Smith, Philip K Dick, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert and, of course, Robert A Heinlein. There are many books I could have chosen for the 60s, but Stranger in a Strange Land is such a masterpiece it really had to be the one. 

70s – Various Authors – 2000AD (1977) 

Does this count for the library? I hope so. I can remember when 2000AD first came out, back in 1977 (oddly enough, around about the same time I read Jennie). I wasn’t allowed to buy it very often, and didn’t have much pocket money to spare for such things anyway, but I did buy that first issue, and still have it (although the space spinner is long gone). It wasn’t until the early 80s that I managed to catch up with it properly. Judge Dredd, Strontium Dogs, Rogue Trooper, Tharg’s Future Shocks, what’s not to like about a weekly SF anthology that’s still going strong 45 years later? 

And if I can’t have 2000AD, then my alternative choice for the 70s has to be James Herbert’s brilliant 1975 book, The Fog. Deeply disturbing to read as a 12 year old (a few years after it came out, if you’re worried about my maths), Herbert’s books were passed around at school like some kind of illicit currency. I recall how if you held them carefully by the spine, they would naturally drop open at the steamy sex scene. Some might criticize Herbert’s books for being a bit formulaic, but he was a master at bringing characters to life (and then often killing them in horribly inventive ways). 

80s – Terry Pratchett – Guards! Guards! (1989) 

I stumbled upon the works of the late, great PTerry when at university in Aberdeen in the late 80s. John Menzies newsagents in the St Nicholas centre had a large bookshop upstairs where, looking for something to feed my SF addiction, I found a copy of his early novel Strata. Not the best Pratchett book, but still good enough to send me scurrying back for everything else he had in print at the time. It’s a toss-up between the Sam Vimes books and the Witches books as to which are my favourite of the Discworld novels, but frankly they are all brilliant. 

90s – Robin Hobb – Assassin’s Apprentice (1995) 

My partner picked this up when we were living in Wales in the early oughts, read it very swiftly and handed it straight to me. The first in what would turn out to be a long saga concerning Fitzchivalry Farseer (Fitz) and the Fool, it’s a brilliantly dark slice of medieval-style fantasy. Game of Thrones might have got everyone interested in the genre again, but it was Robin Hobb who inspired me to write my own epic fantasy series. It has much better dragons, too. 

As you can see I have allowed James the opporunty to add both of his 1970’s selections to the Library shelves. He didn’t try to flex the rules but made two selections on the chance his first choice didn’t meet the rules. That kind consideration means he gets to include an extra book.  Also, I am a huge fan of comic books and of James Herbert books (except Ash which is still the worst book I have ever read) and I am not keen to remove either of the choices from my Library.

Sam Vimes is my favourite fictional officer of the law – my thanks to James for his time, his terrific selections and for bringing Ankh Morpork’s finest into my Decades Library.

DECADES WILL RETURN