Happy World Book Day 2023! It is vital for writers to be constantly reading other books. After all, these can offer unique insights, inspire new creativity and offer much-needed solace.
In case you need some reading material, here are a few book recommendations kindly shared by some of the current members of Huddersfield Authors’ Circle…
‘The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida is the most inspirational and most important book I’ve read. Naoki is a non-verbal Autistic boy (now man) who developed a way of communicating with his mum. David Mitchell made the English translation. The book explains what life is like for him and basically told me what life is like for my son. I have read it many times and it’s beautiful. Collateral, it told me about myself. Out of a strong field, this is the most important book in my life.’
Chris
‘An excellent crime novel set in the sixties. I was apprehensive at first as crime novels are not my favourite. However, having read many books by this author, I thought I would give it a try. I am so glad I did.
Without giving too much away. The story is about a sadistic serial killer of young boys. The police seem at a loss as how to solve the crime and it is left to a teenage girl, whose brother disappears, and the mysterious Woman in the Wood.
Full of brilliant twists and turns. Highly recommended.’
Susie
‘Dr Shepherd is a forensic pathologist. If you’d died under even slightly odd circumstances near his jurisdiction, he’d be the one to cut you up and find out why you are lying on the cold slab in front of him.
Sound gruesome? Well, in some ways it is but utterly fascinating. Like Shakespeare, he orders the cases by age, describing likely causes for us not surviving such milestones as birth, our fifth birthday, teenage years, adulthood, deterioration and, finally, senility.
He also gives some indications as to when the rot set in. Usually this is at conception, but we make it worse throughout our lives by our own behaviour. Those of us who are closer to that cold slab may find this interesting, enlightening or terrifying but for everyone, decrepitude is ineluctable.’
Vivien
‘You might think that literature and statistics don’t mix but, in an odd way, they really do. Word averages can say an awful lot about some of your favourite authors.
For instance, Michael Connolly tends to make his characters ‘nod’. Jane Austen used fewer cliches than any of her contemporaries and even a few modern authors. Both Salman Rushdie and George R R Martin write a lot about ‘whores’ and events often happen very ‘suddenly’ for J R R Tolkien.
In Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve, Ben Blatt provides a fair and considerate analysis of trends in writing and writing advice. I really relished peaking behind the curtain.’
Owen
What are you reading?
Huddersfield Authors Circle 
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