


After the huge response – wait, two comments and seven likes is huge, right? – to my Classic Adams blog featuring my top ten coffee shop stops I made a list of other top ten topics I could delve into and share. Music had to be on there as, for sure, would be books. Cities too would make an interesting subject, not to mention taking it one step further and listing my favourite countries as well. Stand-up comedians would be hard to narrow down to ten but you will soon learn how lax I am when it comes to the final number in any of my completed top ten lists. I only have Thomas and Lucy so a top ten of children seems pointless. If I had to think of another eight kids that’d be weird, not least for the fact that the ones I am related to may not even make the top half…
A friend of mine recently ran a marathon to raise money. She is lovely like that so I sponsored her and she messaged to say thank you and we ‘chatted’ for a while. We used to do a cruise or two a year together and Clare is one of the good guys. We would have conversations for hours and at no point would either one of us mention work, how brilliant our last show was or just how busy we are. Granted that is easier for me as the words ‘brilliant’ and ‘show’ rarely show up in the same sentence with ‘Paul’ ‘a’ ‘had’ and ‘Adams’.
Clare finished up our chat typing “It would be good to have some proper coffee and find a Flying Tiger or some other shop full of tat we never knew we needed.” A second message quickly binged, “Oh, and talk about books!”
If inspiration comes in a better form I’ve yet to find it and I excitedly told Clare that this would be the subject of this weeks blog.
So, books. My top ten? As usual this won’t be in any kind of order, except maybe number one.
Dad would have bought me my first book. I was young, old enough to read, clearly but that’s the best I can do when it comes to giving you an accurate date for my first book. It was Enid Blyton’s Five Go To Treasure Island. It had to be, Dad wouldn’t have bought me a random tale of this quintet, it would have been the first.
I read it again during lockdown when I wrote a chapter of That Bloody Book – the story of the relationship I shared and miss with my Dad. I have read only two books twice, the other being Of Mice And Men when my boy was reading it at school. Both knowing the story gave us something to talk about.
I remember when Thomas was a toddler and I was still in the marital home. The house was full of silence. Suspicious, his mum and I wandered the rooms to see what trouble he’d found only to discover him reading. He loved a book and I take full responsibility for that. He would constantly see me with a book in my hand. I’ll try and remember to post a picture with this piece but we once found him reading Heidi Murkoff: The Toddler Years when he was still in nappies!
Steinbeck has to be on the list and there are so many to choose from but my favourite by some distance is My Travels With Charley. Full of fun tales about a journey John made with his pup, taking in sides of America I knew little about while including some hugely significant political moments. It’s a stunner.
Dad was responsible for my early book choices and I would devour whoever he put in front of me but then I was handed Looking For Rachel Wallace and at the same time introduced to Spencer, a Bostonian Private Investigator. When Robert B Parker died I was distraught. No more Spencer capers until someone told me (and when I say someone it was more than likely Google) that his books were now being written by other writers so the series continued. NO IT DIDN’T! How could it? It’s not Parker!
Then, after another Google prompt, I learned that Parker finished Raymond Chandler’s Poodle Springs, which I read, followed by everything else Chandler wrote, seeing as he was the writer who most influenced Parker.
I like nothing more than finding a new author, especially one with a recurring character.
Talking of discovering new writers, Fredrick Blackman gave us A Man Called Ove which catapulted itself into my top ten. The book was so good I can’t bring myself to watch the movie, A Man Called Otto. I mean, really, what was wrong with Ove?
I like these blogs to be around a thousand words and this is already at 822 and I’ve still got a story about Lucy and books to cram in. So for speed…
Bob Mortimer’s autobiography, And Away, was read in an afternoon although I recommend you read it before you watch any clips of Bob on Would I Lie To You?
Anthony Sher’s Year Of The King, an account of his year playing Richard III fascinated me at school and I still have my copy complete with notes in the margin. I should give that another go.
I love Peter James’ series about the Brighton based Superintendent Roy Grace. They read like a film and the last hundred pages you just can’t turn quickly enough.
Mum stopped reading when Dad passed away. Reading was a love they shared and nigh on a decade passed and she’d not opened a single page. Mum and Dad also loved Brighton and the city features heavily in James’ books so I grabbed Dead Simple for her and she loved it so much that she has now read the whole series and looked forward to her recent flight to Tenerife as the airport had the latest one available in a paperback airport exclusive. I’ll be nicking that from her when she is back.
I love being the person to bring new authors to Mum. Not just Mum, I like to recommend books to everyone. If I can I want to be the person who bought them their copy. And on that note here are a few more for the list…
Wake Me When It’s Funny by Garry Marshall, he who created Happy Days, Mork and Mindy and gave us films like American President and Pretty Woman.
700 Sundays from Billy Crystal recounting all the Sundays he shared with his Dad – I must watch the one man show that came from that book and won Billy a special Tony award. Reading this persuaded me that a book about Dad, or rather, about Dad and me was a far better tribute to him than a big night of stand up I had started to plan with an agent friend of Dad’s, Micheal Vine. I’ve been writing it now for close to a decade. No better tribute to my Dad than not hitting a deadline!
Dad bought me books all the time and said I’d never have to buy my own and he kept that promise all the way up until the time I started to consume books at a rate so high it nullified the arrangement.
My sister’s daughter, Jess, asked for a book. Jane stuck it in the Amazon basket which I spotted it and that was it, the same offer of purchasing books was offered to her, my nephew Jake too and of course my kids.
On our recent summer jaunt to Penzance we stopped in Bath to allow Lucy to visit sites from her favourite books and TV show, Bridgertone. Walking back to the car I spotted Topping & Company a wonderful bookshop chain that I first discovered in Edinburgh and have since visited all but one of their stores. With permission granted I wandered in with Lucy while Thomas and Lyn search for food to enjoy in the park. Lucy went off in search of the latest tale from the siblings of this family giving me the chance to visit Topping & Company’s famous crime section.
Too soon I heard,
“Found it Dad!”. My time searching was done inside a minute and a half. Still, I’d found a few Elmore Leonard’s and Lucy chose NAME for me. Elmore Leonard created fabulous characters and also died the day of Dad’s funeral so he has to be on the list and the story I am choosing is Out Of Sight. I was reading that in the mid nineties and before a show one night watched a movie in the local picture house. It felt familiar and after reaching into my bag I realised it was the celluloid version of my currant read. I left the cinema, finished the book and watched the film the next day. The book was better.
I spent most of lockdown in my Dad’s old office reading. Peter James sent out a video of his recent favourites and I ordered a few. The Surgeon Of Crowthorne by Simon Webster was one and is another for my list and one I buy for others, including my girlfriend Lyn. Knowing her love for reading and words I knew she’d love this book. We share a love reading. Although well into our relationship I learned she prefers to listen to Audible….her love of coffee was also misleading. Her preference there is a coffee bag. A COFFEE BAG. It’s too late now I love her!
I reckon thirteen or fourteen books have been mentioned and therefore recommended but I am reluctant to read back because as well as spotting countless typos and tense errors I’ll be reminded of other books that should be in my top ten.
I’ll end with Born To Run, the autobiography of The Boss: Bruce Springsteen. Not only a great read but one that took him seven years to write, meaning the decade That Bloody Book has taken so far isn’t nearly as bad as I first feared.
Anything by Lawrence Block and I mean anything but his hapless burglar character Bernie Rhodenberg makes me laugh every time. Start with Burglars Can’t Be Choosers!
Bob Mortimer wrote The Satsuma Project which was delightful. His latest, Hotel Avocado, is waiting for me on a ship I join in November along with the last in a Len Deighton trilogy London Match.
Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File
Steve Van Zante’s Unrequited Infatuations . Surely being the E Street Band’s leader was enough of a life but read this and you’ll be amazed by this guy’s life.
19. That’s enough now.
The Late Late Shift by Bill Carter all about the fight behind the scenes to replace legendary American chat show host Johnny Carson including a lovely insight to one of Dad’s and my favourite comedian, David Letterman.
That’s it. Twenty, that is a round number and the perfect place to stop.
Oh, Charlton Heston Has My Body. Google it!
Don’t bother, it’s nowhere to be found on the World Wide Web. It was Dad’s first book written when he was a teenager and until their last move boxes of them were housed in every loft Mum and Dad owned.
Comments 8
Beautifully written, thought provoking, inspiring and funny; thank you for making me smile solidly every minute I was reading and for the afterglow of that too. Learning what books people love adds another dimension to knowing them. Like the diamond you are you’ve just revealed a few more facets that make to sparkle even more brightly. So glad we chatted! 📖 ☕️ 😊
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Me too, thank you Clare
Great again Paul I’ve only read 11 of those , must try harder
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Happy to help!
A marvellous love letter to books and reading! And some new additions to my list of books to buy…
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Love this quote!
What about The Broon’s and Our Willie? I’m sure they were your first!
Derek has read Peter James and other authors recommended by Charlie. Robert Crais xx
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They’re up there.