Here are some mostly older, less well-known books to look for in the library and in second-hand bookshops. My great regret as a reader is that I haven’t kept notes on all the books I’ve read and enjoyed over the years.

A

Chinua Achebe: Anthills of the Savannah

Peter Ackroyd: Shakespeare – the biography

Isabel Allende: Eva Luna;  Paula

Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale

Sylvia Ashton-Warner: Spinster

B

J G Ballard: Empire of the Sun

Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scriptures

Louis de Bernières: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Lesley Blanch: Journey Into the Mind’s Eye; The Wilder Shores of Love

Dirk Bogarde: A Gentle Occupation and the autobiographies

William Boyd: Brazzaville Beach; The Blue Afternoon

Ray Bradbury: Dandelion Wine

E M Braithwaite: To Sir, With Love       

Joan Brady: Theory of War

Arthur Bryant: The Mediaeval Foundation

Bill Bryson: Mother Tongue; Notes From a Small Island

Henrietta Buckmaster: All the Living

Frederick Buechner: Godric

A S Byatt: Possession; Angels & Insects

C

W H Canaway: The Grey Seas of Jutland, Sammy Going South

J L Carr: A Month in the Country

Justin Cartwright: Interior;  Masai Dreaming, White Lightning

Joyce Cary: The Horse’s Mouth

J M Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians; Age of Iron

Colette: Earthly Paradise

Pat Conroy: The Great Santini; Lords of Discipline; Prince of Tides

Tim Couzens: Tramp Royal

Margaret Craven: I Heard the Owl Call my Name

D

Roald Dahl: Boy; Growing Up

Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Conditions

Robertson Davies: The Cunning Man

James Dickey: Deliverance

Joan Didion: The Year of Magical Thinking

E L Doctorow: Ragtime

Gerald Durrell: My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts and Relatives

Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet; Bitter Lemons; Reflections on a Marine Venus

E

Wessel Ebersohn: A Lonely Place to Die;  Store up the Anger; Divide the Night

Gillian Stead Eilersen: Bessie Head : Thunder Behind her Ears

Tan Twan Eng: The Gift of Rain

Shirley Eskapa: The Secret Keeper

F

Gordon Forbes: A Handful of Summers

Margaret Forster: Private Papers

John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman; A Maggot

Athol Fugard: Notebooks

Stephen Fry: Moab is my Washpot

G

Petina Gappah: An Elegy for Easterly

Martha Gellhorn: Travels With Myself & Another

Rumer Godden: A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep;  A House With Four Rooms

Peter Godwin: Mukiwa

Arthur Golden:  Memoirs of a Geisha

Nadine Gordimer: The Lying Days; The Soft Voice of the Serpent

Mary Gordon: Final Payments

Hannah Green: I Never Promised you a Rose Garden

Anthony Grey: Saigon

Ursula le Guin: Dancing on the Edge of the World

David Guterson: Snow Falling on Cedars, East of the Mountains

H

Peter Harris: In a Different Time;  Birth

L P Hartley: The Go-Between

Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast

Michiel Heyns: The Children’s Day; Bodies Politic

Russell Hoban: Turtle Diary

Christopher Hope: My Chocolate Redeemer

Janette Turner Hospital: The Tiger in the Tiger Pit

Richard Hughes: A High Wind in Jamaica

Ted Hughes: Birthday Letters

Evan Hunter: The Blackboard Jungle

Keri Hulme: The Bone People

Elspeth Huxley: The Flame Trees of Thika

I

John Irving: The World According to Garp; Hotel New Hampshire

Lucy Irving: Castaway

J

Noni Jabavu: The Ochre People; Drawn in Colour

Clive James: Unreliable Memoirs

P D James: Devices and Desires

Paul Johnson: Intellectuals

Shaun Johnson: The Native Commissioner

Lloyd Jones: Mister Pip

K

Bel Kaufman: Up the Down Staircase

Dennis Kay: Shakespeare

Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Fred Khumalo: Touch my Blood

Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible

Maxine Hong Kingston: The Woman Warrior; China Men

Rudyard Kipling: Kim

L

Giuseppe di Lampedusa: The Leopard

Dennis Lawson: School for the Deaf

John le Carré: A Perfect Spy; The Secret Pilgrim; The Tailor of Panama;  Single & Single

Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

Laurie Lee: Cider With Rosie;  As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Doris Lessing: The Grass is Singing;  The Golden Notebook;  Under My Skin;  Walking in the

   Shade; A Small Personal Voice

Hugh Lewin: Bandiet

Penelope Lively: Moon Tiger

Alison Lurie: Not in Front of the Grown-ups; Real People

M

Norman Maclean: A River Runs Through It

Sindiwe Magona: For My Children’s Children

Katherine Mansfield: Collected Short Stories

Beryl Markham: West by Night

Gabriel Garcia Marquez:  A Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera

Johnny Masilela: Deliver Us From Evil

Mary McCarthy: The Group

James McClure: The Steam Pig; The Gooseberry Fool; The Caterpillar Cop; Snake 

Frank McCourt: Angela’s Ashes

Ian McEwan: Saturday; On Chesil Beach

Zakes Mda: Ways of Dying

Henry Miller: The Books in my Life

Walter M Miller: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love; Love in a Cold Climate; The Blessing

Dom Moraes: Daddy-ji

Toni Morrison: Beloved

John Mortimer: In Character

Es’kia Mphahlele: Down Second Avenue; The Unbroken Song

N

Njabulo Ndebele: Fools & Other Stories

Mike Nicol: The Powers That Be; This Day and Age

David Niven: The Moon’s a Balloon; Bring on the Empty Horses

O

Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient

P

Eve Palmer: The Plains of Camdeboo; Return to Camdeboo

Alan Paton: Cry the Beloved Country; Ah But Your Land is Beautiful

Jill Paton Walsh: Knowledge of Angels

Frederick Prokosch: The Dark Dancer

R

Mary Renault: The King Must Die; The Bull From the Sea

Arturo Perez-Reverte: The Flanders Panel; The Seville Communion

Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea

Douglas Rogers: The Last Resort

Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things

Damon Runyon: Guys & Dolls

S

Barry Sanders: A is for Ox

Paul Scott: The Jewel in the Crown series; Staying On

Robert Shaw: The Flag

Carol Shields: The Stone Diaries, Unless

Simon Singh: Fermat’s Last Theorem  

Carolyn Slaughter: Dreams of the Kalahari

Gillian Slovo: Every Secret Thing

Elizabeth Smart: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Dava Sobel: Longitude

Patrick Susskind: Perfume

Graham Swift: Waterland; Last Orders

T

Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club; The Kitchen God's Wife

Nancy Thayer: Stepping; Nell

Barbara Trapido: Brother of the More Famous Jack; Noah’s Ark

Josephine Tey: Daughter of Time

Paul Theroux: The Great Railway Bazaar; The Kingdom by the Sea; The Mosquito Coast

Trevanian: Shibumi

Lynn Truss: Eats Shoots & Leaves

Anne Tyler: Saint Maybe

V

Etienne van Heerden: Ancestral Voices

Marlene van Niekerk: Agaat

Chris van Wyk: Shirley Goodness & Mercy

Ivan Vladislavic: The Restless Supermarket; Portrait With Keys; Double Negative

Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye

Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five

Elizabeth von Arnim: Elizabeth and her German Garden

Pieter de Vries: The Blood of the Lamb

W

Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited; Black Mischief; Scoop

William Wharton: Dad; Bird; Tidings

Tobias Wolff: Life in Pharaoh’s Army; A Boy’s Life; Old School