Books

The first adult book I remember reading was James Herbert’s The Rats, lent to me by one of my sister’s friends when I was about twelve. It made a big impression on me and I soon read all the James Herbert books my local library had to offer before moving on to Stephen King and Dean Koontz, later on discovering Robert McCammon and Peter Straub.

Not being a very outgoing or popular child, I managed to get through a hell of a lot of books in my teen years. But up until the time when I started going to college, the only books I owned were either gifts or titles from the Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators series (I was very disappointed to learn in later life that they hadn’t been written by the man himself).

All that changed when I went to Watford and discovered the biggest threat to my grant cheques – the second-hand bookstall. Priced at anything between thirty pence and one pound per book, I was soon buying handfuls of books at a time, and was also first name terms with the stall holder, lovely lady.

It got to the point where I was taking two suitcases home every term – one for clothes (dirty, obviously), the other full of all the books and videos I'd bought.

Things have slowed somewhat now (does everyone find that the more you earn, the less you have to spend, or is it just me?), but I’ve still probably got a couple of hundred books I’ve never read. The only books I actively keep an eye out for now are Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. You can read more about them here.