Danspaghettiman

I read Jayne Eyre and really enjoyed it until I followed with Wuthering Heights which I loved. What a book! It has everything - plot, description, characters.

I remember reading The Glass Bead Game many years ago and found Hesse compelling though not always easy to follow. I read it after Brave New World and 1984 - was on a utopia/dystopia path at the time. What did you think of Hesse's style?

I used to love Hardy. He has tragic characters that for me were so extreme that it would strangely make me laugh - like poor Jude, I mean could anything else have gone wrong for him. I can see why anyone would be turned off by this though. I had to read the classics at college and apart from Jane Austin I have read most Victorian novelists. Women seem to love Jane Austin but I have yet to meet a man that does. But these days there are so many really great books that you can just read whatever you want.

I love George Orwell but 1984 is my least favourite. I have read and enjoyed most of the classic female Victorian authors, George Elliott, Brontes, as an adult but would not have read them at school. When you are a boy and reading is not exactly cool the book has to be engaging and identifiable. I think the first book I read that hooked me was Catcher in the Rye. Steinbeck worked for me too. Easy to read and compelling. Do you buy physical books or digital?

This is my first time in this group and really impressed by the level of debate. I read fiction every day but don't know any other men that do. My dad had the same opinion as Noel Gallagher: that reading fiction was a waste of time. He, my father, read non-fiction everyday. He like many, felt you could not learn anything from fiction. I find this astounding. I used to argue with him about where he thought fiction came from. Did he really think it was completely made up and not based on fact and of course is all non-fiction completely factual. Anyway I did not win and he never read fiction which was a real shame - for him. I did not read fiction at school because the books did not relate to my life. When I left school and disovered texts that did I started reading fiction and have never stopped. The problem I feel is that schools, especially now, have set texts they have to use. It is not the fault of the teachers. The Government decides what children should read and these texts do not relate to the children's everyday lives and does not inspire them to carry on reading. Children should be able to read any book, within reason and decency, that tIhey want - as i belived that getting them to read is more important than what they read.