It’s a fact of life: some books speak to us more than others.

Here, then, is my literary canon: the writers and works that mean most to me.

Davies, Robertson
Delderfield, R.F.
Greene, Graham
Homer (Not Simpson)
James, Clive
Johns, W.E.
Jones, James
King, Stephen
Lewis, C.S.
Lodge, David
Lower, Lennie
MacLean, Alistair
Macneile Dixon, W.
Montaigne, Michel de
Moorhouse, Frank
Nash, Ogden
Potter, Dennis
Ransome, Arthur
Shakespeare, William
–  The Sonnets
Storr, Anthony
Tolstoy, Leo
Waugh, Evelyn
Wodehouse, P.G.

Candidates for the canon

Crystal, David
Dickens, Charles
Eliot, George
Hardy, Thomas
Highsmith, Patricia
Merton, Thomas
Murdoch, Walter
Scruton, Roger
Warton, Edith

While you’re at it, why not check out my musical canon, which makes more noise than this one.