Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Ross MacKay

In January 2021 I threw open the doors to my Decades Library. At that time there were no books in the Library but I knew I wanted to fill those empty shelves with the very best reads for the Library visitors to enjoy. But how to ensure the best books were represented?

Filling the shelves with amazing and unmissable books was not a task I could take on alone, I didn’t have the depth of reading knowledge that I knew would be needed. So I decided to ask for help. Each week I am joined by a new guest (a guest curator) who adds new books to the library shelves and helps me ensure the selection of titles on offer is as good as it can be.

I have been joined by authors, bloggers and publishers – booklovers – and they each bring a fresh perspective on which books I should make available to Library visitors. But when I invite my guests to make their reading recommendations I set two rules which they need to follow (there’s gotta be rules):

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

Easy? Have a go at making your own selections and see if you can nail down five books which were published over a fifty year publication span. The oldest book in the Decades Library was first published in the 1860’s – there have been many books released since then so coming up with five should not be too tricky!

But time to introduce Ross MacKay. Ross released his debut novel at the end of last year and is shortly due to appear at the Paisley Book Festival (more on this below). He had an extremely busy end of year at Cumbernauld’s Lantern Theatre as his adaptation of a classic story delighted audiences and he is officially one of the most supportive people I have met in all my years of blogging. He also picks great reading recommendations so this is where I had over to Ross….

Ross was the recipient of the William Soutar Award for Poetry 2020.

His debut novel, Will and The Whisp was published in 2022 to critical acclaim.

His plays have been performed across Scotland and his adaptation of Treasure Island premiered in Cumbernauld over the festive period.

Ross previously worked in theatre as the artistic director of Tortoise in a Nutshell. His productions toured across the world. His shows have received numerous prestigious awards including a Scotsman Fringe First for New Writing and a Critic’s Pick from The New York Times.

On the 19^th Feb, Ross is appearing at Paisley Book Festival with his novel, Will and The Whisp. This unique theatrical event will bring Will and The Whisp to life. Ross will read some of the most dramatic moments of the book while accompanied by an immersive soundscape, especially composed for the event by award winning musician, Jim Harbourne. Tickets can be bought here: https://paisleybookfest.com/programme/will-and-the-whisp/

DECADES

1970- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John Le Carré

I had known of John or Carré’s books for a long time before I ever picked one up. They seemed quite bulky and serious and frankly a bit too Oxbridge for my tastes. But then I saw the film The Constant Gardener and was amazed to see it was based on a Le Carré novel. I first read it and then found Tinker Tailor. And it is long and dusty and very Oxbridge – my presumptions weren’t wrong but my tastes had changed. I got lost in the world. There is something sort of dangerously charming about a bunch of adults so institutionalised by their private education that they basically extend that worldview into the high stakes of espionage.

1980 – Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco

For me Umberto Eco is the absolute master. He is one of the few authors I re-read. I take months to read his work. I find it dense, layered and slippery. Just when I think I have it in my grasp I find the heart of the story has shifted while I wasn’t looking. Its like playing whack-a-mole with all the big ideas of the 20th century. And all the while he’s telling a story that is riveting too.

1990 – Northern Lights, Philip Pullman

Ahhh my heart. For a lot of children now my age, Harry Potter was the pinnacle. But for me it was Northern Lights. As a kid who loved bible stories and the idea of going to church (I know I was an odd one), I found Pullman much more exciting, dangerous and though-provoking than Rowling. I still do. And the ending to Northern Lights is still most vividly imaginative thing I’ve ever read.

2000 – Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel does this thing where she sort of plumps someone with 21st century ideals into the past. Here she uses Thomas Cromwell as a sort of promethean figure bearing witness to and shaping British history. So what becomes compelling is how she uses this device to draw you ever closer to her subject. By the end of the trilogy I felt I knew the character inside out and yet was still perplexed by him.

I listened to this on audiobook and I vividly recall rewinding moments to hear them again.

2010- The Lie Tree, Frances Hardringe

So, remember two decades ago when I was waxing lyrical about Pullman. This book is the closest I have come to feeling that again. It is a brilliant book. Imaginative and brilliantly feminist without ever feeling preachy. I have kept this book on my bookshelf but I know as soon as my son is old enough i’m going to move it to his. I can’t wait to read it to him.

I really love the mix of fantasy, espionage and history which Ross has brought to the Decades Library. I am all too often tempted by recommendations and this week it is The Lie Tree which will be added to my future reading lists – it sounds like a dark warning wrapped in a novel.

I shared the link to Ross’s panel at the forthcoming Paisley Book Festival, there’s a really interesting programme from 16th to 19th February so if you’re in the area you may want to check it out: https://paisleybookfest.com/

DECADES WILL RETURN

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July 25

Decades: Compiling The Ultimate Library with Helen FitzGerald

My Decades Library grows. Each week I am joined by a booklover (authors, pubishers, bloggers or journalists) and I ask them to nominate five new books which they think should be included in my Ultimate Library. I started this challenge back in January 2021 and since then over 70 guest curators have joined me and selected some of their favourite reads which they feel the very best library should have available for readers to enjoy.

My guests don’t quite get to choose their five “favourite” books as I impose a couple of rules on their selections which means some books just don’t get to be included – I am told this can cause a bit of heartache and I do sometimes feel bad about this.

The reason I describe my Library as the Decades Library is beacuse of the rules governing selections:

1 – Choose Any Five Books
2 – You May Only Choose One Book Per Decade from Five Consecutive Decades.

So it’s selections from a fifty year publication span and means the fans of Tom Clancy can’t just pick all the Jack Ryan books – I initially hoped these rules would bring a broader range of reads to choose from and this seems to have been the case. Incidentally – in 18 months of Decades selections I haven’t had a single Tom Clancy book nominated.

Today I am delighted to be joined by Helen FitzGerald. Helen’s latest book, Keep Her Sweet, is published by Orenda Books (who also made five Decades selections). You can order a copy of Keep Her Sweet here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keep-Her-Sweet-Helen-FitzGerald/dp/1914585100/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1650564375&sr=8-1

Helen FitzGerald is the bestselling author of ten adult and young adult thrillers, including The Donor (2011) and The Cry (2013), which was longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and adapted for a major BBC drama. Her 2019 dark-comedy thriller Worst Case Scenario was a Book of the Year in the Literary Review, Herald Scotland, Guardian and Daily Telegraph, shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and won the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award. Helen worked as a criminal justice social worker for over fifteen years. She grew up in Victoria, Australia, and now lives in Glasgow with her husband. Follow Helen on Twitter @FitzHelen

DECADES

Published 1979 – Flowers in the Attic, V.C Andrews (smuggled this into the house!)

Up in the attic, four secrets are hidden. Four blonde, beautiful, innocent little secrets, struggling to stay alive…

Chris, Cathy, Cory and Carrie have perfect lives – until a tragic accident changes everything. Now they must wait, hidden from view in their grandparents’ attic, as their mother tries to figure out what to do next. But as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, the siblings endure unspeakable horrors and face the terrifying realisation that they might not be let out of the attic after all.

Helen shared with me that she read this when she was 13 (which may explain why she smuggled the book into the house). It’s definately a book which resonates with Decades Curators, Susi Holliday also made this choice when she picked her five and also suggested that she read it at an impressionable age.

Twice adapted for film, Flowers in the Attic was the first in a series which saw seven sequels follow over the years.

Published 1980 – The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

The year is 1327.

Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.

When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the over of night.

A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Selling over 50 million copies worldwide, no doubt boosted by the film of the same name which starred Sean Connery and Christian Slater, this biblical crime thriller was ranked 14 in Le Monde’s top 100 books of the century.

Published 1997 – Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey

Peter Carey’s novel of the undeclared love between clergyman Oscar Hopkins and the heiress Lucinda Leplastrier is both a moving and beautiful love story and a historical tour de force set in Victorian times.

Made for each other, the two are gamblers – one obsessive, the other compulsive – incapable of winning at the game of love.

Winner of the 1998 Booker Prize the book was also adapted into a film which starred Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett.

Published 2008 – The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly boy.

The boy is not his son.

It is a single act of violence, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen.

Christos Tsiolkas presents the impact of this apparently minor domestic incident through the eyes of eight of those who witness it. The result is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits…

The story is told through the voices of eight characters, in third person and each in a chapter of their own. Events after the incident are outlined chronologically through each character’s story.

The Slap won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2009 and has twice been adapted into a mini-series.

Published 2016 – A Dark Matter (The Skelfs), Doug Johnstone

Three generations of women from the Skelfs family take over the family funeral home and PI businesses in the first book of a taut, gripping page-turning and darkly funny new series.

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators…

When patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events. Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined.

As the women struggle to come to terms with their grief, and the demands of the business threaten to overwhelm them, secrets from the past emerge, which change everything…

Shotlisted for the 2020 McIlvanney Prize (Scottish Crime Book of the Year) A Dark Matter introduced readers to The Skelfs – a much loved Edinburgh Family who have subsequently appeared in two further novels and will return later this year for a fourth outing in Black Hearts.

HONORARY MENTION: Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1894, watched on TV 1973). I was the second youngest of 13; Mum was step-mum to the older eight children; dad was a strict ex military man; we lived in rural Victoria – so this really hit home. The only time we were ever allowed to miss mass was to watch the final episode when it was adapted for television.

My thanks to Helen for these wonderful selections. I can only include the five official selections in the Library but I do love an honorary mention as it lets me see which books almost made the cut.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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April 1

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with David Monteath

The second quarter of 2022 is upon us. As this latest Decades selection goes live it will be April and Decades will be in its sixteenth month of guests. I am grateful to each and every contributor and to you for returning, week on week, to see the latest books which are being added to my Decades Library.

The Decades Library I hear you ask? I am compiling a list of the very best books which my guests think would deserve a place in the Ulitmate Library. I started this project in January 2021 with zero books and each week I ask a guest to nominate five new books which they would want to see included in a collection of the finest writing.

When making their selections my guests are asked to follow two rules.

1 – Choose Any Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades.

This week I am delighted to be joined my someone who reads my books for me. Or is that to me? David Monteath (@joxvox) will be a familiar voice to many audiobook fans and I am always fascinated to know which books stand out to someone who spends most of his waking hours focused entirely on the written word.

One of Scotland’s most popular voiceovers, David Monteath was born in Glasgow and started acting while at high school, he trained as an actor at Webber Douglas in London and has been an actor and voiceover for 25 years.

David’s early life was split between homes on the outskirts of Glasgow and the beautiful Spey Valley in the Highlands of Scotland. He also lived in central Perthshire near the popular tourist destination of Pitlochry with its world-famous Festival Theatre.

While training at the prestigious Webber Douglas Academy in London, David met his future wife Lindsay. They have three children and all five of them have worked as voiceovers for clients across Europe, Asia, North America and the Middle East.

David has put his voice to good use over the years and has vast experience of most aspects of being a voiceover from advertising for television and radio, ADR and dubbing on film and television, language tapes for learners of English, telephony and on-hold messages, character animation through to narration, commentary and audiobooks.

He has also produced and co-presented a weekly request show on Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio

DECADES

Most of my choices are made from books I have read for work, one of the downside of being an audiobook narrator is that I rarely have time now to read for pleasure, so in many ways my reading choices are dictated by my clients. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, this work has introduced me to many writers I would never have found otherwise.

The High Girders – John Prebble – 1956

This is an absolute classic and the first John Prebble I have read. It follows the story of the building of the Tay Railway bridge and its eventual collapse on 28^th December 1879. The story follows in detail the events of the night, and wherever the blame is felt to lie for the errors which caused the disaster and 75 deaths, Prebble’s book is a fascinating account of a terrible night and a compassionate recounting of so many very human losses.

The Game of Kings (The Lymond Chronicles) Dorothy Dunnett – 1961

Ok, there is a tale behind this one…where else would tails be?…I was recording a quiet story of a country doctor when the producer asked if I would be interested in narrating another book for him, ‘it’s a bit longer than this one’ he said. ‘Of course I would.’ Now cut forward a few days and I was sent the pdf, most audiobook narrators work from iPads, it makes it much quieter as you don’t hear the dreaded page-turn noises that audio editors hate. Also making notes on character and scene etc are simpler on a screen. So, I opened the pdf and found a place at random a good few pages in. I read a rather lovely scene between our hero Lymond and a very young Mary Queen of Scots, set on an island in the middle of the Lake of Menteith, my area of Scotland…but more importantly where I was married. Of course I was completely drawn in and contacted the producer who said…’Um, this has changed slightly, you might have noticed that the book is a biggie, we think it’ll be around 26 hours when you’ve finished recording. Is that still ok?’. Oh definitely good for me. Then he muttered quietly as the phone was going down…’just one more thing…there are six of them, all pretty much the same length!!’ So, this quiet chat turned into 1.3 million words read, 146 hours of finished audiobooks and over 300 hours recording in my tiny studio during the very hot summer of 2018…it was HUGE…and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

I’m not going to try to precis the book or the series, if you’ve read or listened to them you know why…if you haven’t, the please, please do, you absolutely wont regret it. They are glorious.

The General Danced at Dawn – George MacDonald Fraser – 1970

IN the early 1990s, when I was on tour with the Oscar Wilde play ‘A Woman of No Importance’, I shared dressing rooms around the country with an actor called Stuart Hutchison, who was also a regular face on Westward Television in the Plymouth area. Stuart and I spent hours talking about books, art, music and pretty much anything but football which we both dislike. He bought me a copy of The General Danced at Dawn as I’d never read the stories and he wanted someone else to be able to laugh at them and love them as much as he did. I’ve been very fortunte in my career to work with some really kind, generous people and that was Stuart.

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco – 1980

Hmmm, I’m beginning to sense a bit of a history theme in my reading. This book sort of crosses all of my working genres, history (albeit fictional) and crime. It’s a complicated disturbing romp through murders in a 16^th Century monastry in middle Europe, probably modern day Germany. The descriptions of ecclesiastical life and the conflicts in the church at that time are great, although if you saw the film first, I defy you not to hear Sean Connery every time Brother William speaks.

Iain Banks – Complicity – 1993

Right then, back to me again…this is a revenge story, brilliantly written by the always brilliant Iain Banks. Someone once asked me, if given a choice what books would you like to have narrated? Any of the Iain Banks would have been my choice. It’s even more annoying that the reader is a friend and a very good reader.

I worked in a bookshop in the early 1990’s and without exception all these authors were selling in great numbers in Inverness bookshops – I know this as I was selling them. Pure nostalgia for me and I loved these choices.

And not just those choices as David gave me two extras. I have taken an executive decision to move Montrose out of the 1970s and Morningstar out of the 1990s selections. I don’t mind the fact Montrose was originally written in the 1920s but it would mean dropping George MacDonald Fraser so rather than flex the rules I opted for the clear cut entry. I am being hard on David Gemmell by moving him to the subs bench but only one book per decade is the rule so I flipped a coin!

But I don’t hide the alternates so here are David’s thoughts:

Montrose – John Buchan – 1979 (from 1928)?

This might be a bit of a cheeky one as the book was originally published in 1928, but reissued in 1979. This was another audiobook project, but one far closer to my heart. My clan are the Graham from Stirlingshire and this book tells the story of the first James Graham, 1^st Duke of Montrose. My father was passionately interested in Scottish history, so this exploration of a turbulent time in Scotland was a particular favourite of his.

Morningstar – David Gemmell – 1992

OK, yes, actually I just like a good historical epic, this one was a thumping good read, glorious descriptions and a suitably complicated fantasy world. Its beautifully written and a great adventure.

A country in desperate need of heroes . . .

Angostin invaders surge through the Highlands, laying waste to everything in their path. Darkness follows in their wake as a mad necromancer resurrects the eons-dead Vampyre Kings.

Only the bandit Jarek Mace, and the magicker and bard Owen Odell, have the courage to fight the Angostins and the undead. Whispers soon spread that Mace is the legendary Morningstar, a saviour who will protect his country in its hour of need. Yet Mace seems nothing more than a thief and a liar.

As the final battle approaches, Odell wonders which of the two Maces will triumph: the self-serving rogue or the saviour of his people, the Morningstar.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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March 12

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Chris Lloyd

Decades is into its third month and my Library is growing. Library? What Library?

Late last year I pondered the dilemma a librarian may face if they were asked to create a new library. They have absolutely no books, none, a blank slate. Where would you start? From here my challenge began – compile the Ulimate Library, invite guests to join me in selecting the books they feel should be added to the shelves. But we must have rules to govern this venture or we risk anarchy.

Rule 1 – Guests can pick any five books.

Rule 2 – Only one book per decade for any five consecutive decades.

That’s it. Easy! Or seemingly not as when my guests try to make their five choices I am told there can be cussing and indecision.

Today I am thrilled to be joined by Chris Lloyd. When I compiled my favourite Audiobooks of 2020 there was never a doubt in my mind that The Unwanted Dead, published by Orion, would feature. Chris tells me that the paperback of The Unwanted Dead is out on March 18th so I could think of no better guest to invite to participate in my Decades challenge this week. Before I get Chris to introduce himself I would urge you to seek out The Unwanted Dead this week and when you have finished and enjoyed that one here are some of his other books to get your teeth into: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chris-Lloyd/e/B01GQH7Q5C?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1615537791&sr=8-1

Decades

My name’s Chris Lloyd and I have a tendency to go around in circles. I grew up in South Wales, where my parents moved from their native mid-Wales after more than a decade of living abroad, so when it came to my turn, I went and lived in Catalonia for twenty-four years. I lived in Girona and then Barcelona, where I taught English, worked in educational publishing, wrote guide books, almost appeared on TV three times and translated. Interspersed with this, I also lived in Bilbao and Madrid, and I spent six months as a student in Grenoble researching the French Resistance, even though I kept coming back to Catalonia. I told you I went around in circles. As yet more proof of that, I moved back to Wales a few years ago, where I live near enough to the Brecon Beacons to feel the cold, but not so close as to enjoy the scenery. But never mind that as I’m about to move with my wife to my childhood home by the sea, which we’ve been trying to do for years.

I spend part of my day translating academic texts from Catalan and Spanish and another more fun part of the day writing crime fiction. I wrote a trilogy for Canelo set in Girona, featuring Elisenda Domènech, a detective with the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, which is about to come out in audiobook.

The result of my lifelong fascination with resistance and collaboration in Occupied France, I now write the Eddie Giral series, set in Paris in World War Two and featuring a Paris police detective forced to come to terms with the Nazi Occupation of the city. Seeking to negotiate a path between the occupier and the occupied, Eddie struggles to retain some semblance of humanity while walking a fine line between resistance and collaboration. The first book in the series, The Unwanted Dead, published by Orion, comes out in paperback on 18 March.

You can come and say hello on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrislloydbcn or take a look at my website at https://chrislloydauthor.com/

I want to thank Gordon for inviting me to contribute to this brilliant idea, and also for setting me the completely impossible task of finding my favourite book from each decade over five decades – I felt actual pain every time I had to eliminate a book I loved from the list to arrive at the five below. I’ve gone for the 1950s to the 1990s, and even that decision was tough. I hope you like some of my choices.

1950s – The Daughter of Time – Josephine Tey This is the perfect crime book, the Lord Reith of crime writing – it informs, educates and entertains. A story of a police detective confined to a hospital bed who decides to investigate the murder of the princes in the tower, it’s a textbook showcase of the limitless possibilities that crime fiction can offer. It not only contributed to the historical debate about the role of villain that history had assigned to Richard III, it’s also a powerful insight into character and, quite simply, a bloody good detective story

1960s – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré

The lesson this book taught us is that heroes can be amoral, unpalatable people, and you don’t have to root for them any the less because of it. Le Carré changed the rules with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and I firmly believe we as readers and writers have been benefiting from it ever since. He made it all right for main characters to be fundamentally flawed and unlikeable – even ordinary – and for the supposed good that they are striving for to be

achieved using methods that are no less morally reprehensible than the supposed evil they are fighting against. It was a sea change in depth and understanding of character and of heroes and villains.

1970s – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

From the very first line with its “unfashionable” end of the galaxy to Marvin the Paranoid Android with a brain the size of a small planet, The Hitchhiker’s Guide taught me that it was perfectly all right for a book to be both very intelligent and delightfully silly. In fact, the silliness is born out of the intelligence and really isn’t that silly anyway when you look close enough. Quite apart from that, it’s also a hymn to playfulness not just with story, but with language. Read this book and your view of the universe will be altered forever – in a good way.

1980s – The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

There are few books that can compare with The Name of the Rose when it comes to creating an unsettling atmosphere. The harshness of the setting and the description of the weather outside the confines of the monastery conjure up a sense of brooding malevolence that is both exacerbated and symbolised by one of the most bizarre casts of characters in any book. Also, I started reading it alone at night in a Spanish castle, which might not have been the best idea, but it certainly helped set the mood.

1990s – Fatherland – Robert Harris

I’m beginning and ending these decades by closing the circle with a celebration of just how far you can go with crime fiction. My favourite ‘What if…’ story, Fatherland takes place in a 1960s Berlin in a world where the Nazis won. A police detective is investigating a case that leads him to suspect a far greater crime, one that we all know with the hindsight of history but that he doesn’t. And that’s the power and brilliance of the book – to be able to take one of the most evil moments in history and reveal it once again with renewed horror as it becomes apparent to the protagonist.

My most sincere thanks to Chris for his excellent selections and for taking time to join my Decades challenge. The Unquiet Dead is released in paperback on 18th March – 1940, a Paris cop investigating murders while his city is taken under Nazi control…I don’t do it justice when I say I found it a brilliant read.

If you want to catch up on which books have already been added to my Library then you can visit it here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

Decades Will Return

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