Peter Mayle: My six best books
PETER Mayle, 71, spent 15 years working in the advertising industry before moving to France and winning literary success in 1989 with the bestselling A Year In Provence. His debut crime novel The Vintage Caper (Quercus, £12.99) is out now
Master & Commander
by Patrick O’Brian
Harper, £7.99
I love all 20 volumes of O’Brian’s fabulous sea saga. Indeed it’s better than the Hornblower series. It boasts great characters and is a good way to learn some history.
Nobody’s Perfect
by Anthony Lane
Picador, £12.99
A thoughtful, well observed volume of essays by the New Yorker’s film critic. He writes about movies but also about art, fashion and politics. Intelligent, thought-provoking and funny.
A Time of Gifts
by Patrick Leigh Fermor
John Murray, £9.99
A book about the extraordinary journey the author made when he was 18 or 19, following a turbulent love affair, which involved him walking from London to Constantinople. It took him months but provided some wonderful material for this amusing, well written tome.
Writing Home
by Alan Bennett
Faber, £9.99
I’m a great admirer of Bennett and this features a mixture of his diary entries, profiles and essays as well as a bonus in the entire story of The Lady In The Van. He’s so perceptive and so funny as a writer that he’s in a class of his own.
The Leopard
by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Vintage, £8.99
Set in 19th-century Sicily at the time of Garibaldi’s Redshirts this is a famous Italian novel about a turbulent time in the nation’s history. It also made a pretty good film starring Burt Lancaster but the book is naturally superior.
The Elements of Style
by William I Strunk and EB White
Longman, £7.99
A classic guide to writing decent clear English that is useful and also entertainingly written. I read it every year to remind myself what I should be doing with my own writing. The great thing about this terrific book is that it uncomplicates the business of writing.