Favourite Books that inspire me.

Reading is the one joy that can be done anywhere, whether that be a book, a post, a newspaper, sat comfortably at home, in bed, in a doctors surgery, on a train, anywhere, and I have done all of those. I'm just going to take a moment to think about five books that have inspired me and still today I'll go back and enjoy again and again, to bring a little joy if I'm stuck in A+E yet again for example.

Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms is the first TP book I ever read and it was a life changer. I was 13 years old and until that point most fantasy books I'd struggled to read, maybe they were too dry, or I lost the finer details I just wasn't able to truly focus on anything properly, it's been suggested I have ADHD by a doctor though I haven't sought a diagnosis, it would explain a lot about me.

Despite this Men at Arms totally engaged me, easy to read and I felt more characterful than most of the fantasy books I'd tried to read before. It's an absolute joy a riot from start to finish, mixing a serious story of murder and control with comedy and the ordinary people in a fantasy world. I still love it now, after reading it I don't know how many times, a lot doesn't do that justice and as for opening up my mind to a new style of writing it inspired me to take my first steps into writing. Though it's taken decades for me to actually get anything down properly, this marks the starting whistle to my own writing.

Legend by David Gemmell is the book that led me to being home late from work once. I had been reading it on the way to and from work as well as at lunch and so forth but I was close to the end on the train home and found myself unable to put the book down. After getting off the train I would have had another 30 minutes of cycling to reach the village I lived at but on this day I stopped my bicycle at the side of the road and stood there until I'd finished the book eventually getting home 35 minutes later than usual.

I loved the depiction of the fortress, the desperate air of the fighting, a last stand heroic defence that appeared doomed to failure and the cast one by one losing their lives in heroic manners really appealed to me. Maybe I was a sucker for heroic failure I don't know but the story drew me in willing them on all the way until I was stood in that side street reading the final twists in rapture.

I've tried to access the same sense of doom in some of my writing since, the people fighting on despite overwhelming odds playing on the emotions of the reader.

Throne of Glass I found in a charity shop, I'm often on the lookout in charity shops for new fantasy books so on seeing the cover of this and thinking that she appeared to be similar to my character Sio who at the time I'd written two books featuring I read the back and was intrigued by the premise.

This is a YA Fantasy book so I wasn't surprised though slightly dismayed that the protagonist is a teenage girl with special powers and has at least two guys after her, something that drives me chuffing mad because it seems so omnipresent in books. However despite these things I disliked I found that overall story really dragged me in, the right amount of background magical intrigue, coupled with series danger to the main character and high emotion. So I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this book so much despite it appearing in certain areas to have things I hate. The thing I took away from it was a continued love of tournaments, I've written a few tournaments into books and one book centered a Gladiator tournament.

This is the starting point of all my fantasy book interests, my dad was a huge fan of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and after I expressed an interest in fantasy cartoons and films as a child my dad gave me his copy of The Hobbit and told me to read it. I think I was 8 or 9 at the time and my brain did struggle to take it a bit but I know I ploughed through to the end and then immediately read it again to try and be clear on it so it made a serious impression. LOTR I wasn't able at that age to get all the way through.

My fascination with Elves, Dwarves, fantasy medieval themes began here even though I've not read it for years it still is the line in the sand I crossed to fantasy worlds in my head and I never looked back.

Now that's a different moment to finish on, something not only isn't fantasy, but not even fiction.

I picked this book up on a random trip to the Isle of Man, and have read it so much it's falling apart now. It tells what life was truly like for pirates, covering absolutely everything, and the book has been invaluable for me any time I've written anything involving pirates, for example the entire Sio book 'Shipwrecked'.

Facts are sometimes more interesting that fiction, pirate films and TV often show buried treasure, walking the plank and shooting each other, the reality was somewhat different.

I find non-fiction books a wonderful source for world creation, or building a society. This is just the first one I can directly name to inspiring me in a specific manner, and will use again the next time I take a visit to anywhere where the cast are likely to use an 'arr' or two.