S. J. Bolton

S. J. Bolton's Top Ten Books

Atmosphere, mystery, a deeply passionate love story and the most compelling hero in literature. This book has everything for me and is, rather than Wuthering Heights, the true Bronte masterpiece.

This isn't my favourite King novel but the underlying idea behind the plot - that of four great forces governing the universe - life, death, purpose and random - is one of the most imaginative I've ever come across - and something I find disturbingly credible. I also like the way King makes his action hero and heroine two people in their seventies - a feat very few thriller writers could pull off.

This is a tremendously warm and uplifting book. Four women, strangers to each other at the outset, rent a castle in Italy for the month of April. I'm in awe of a writer who can produce such an engaging and enthralling story out of so little action

Simple, compelling and totally terrifying, this is possibly the best thriller ever written. If it didn't invent the notion of the fascinating, strangely engaging serial killer, it certainly gave it a new lease of life. Hannibal Lector is the perfect anti-hero - we are mesmerized and repulsed by him in equal measure and the beautiful, brace Clarice is a wonderful foil for him.

The aspect of literature I find most inspiring, that pushes me to keep going, to produce something that bit better, is that which stretches the human imagination beyond what I'd have believed possible. I love these three books so much: polar bears and witches, parallel worlds that are reached through the aurora borealis, people whose souls take animal form, warriors that ride on dragon-flies. They're not perfect books, but they're works of sheer genius all the same. I know that I'll be reading them until the day I die.

Thriller, adventure story, romance, fantasy, epic - these books have pace, suspence, excitement, characters you can love, the age-old battle of good v evil and an earthly love of food, beer and all things humble. Peter Jackson's wonderful films brought the story to millions but, as is always the case, there's so much more to be found in the books.

It's fashionable to knock Dan Brown, but I can't bring myself to do it. Yes, there are faults in this book, but I'd read it cover to cover three times in a row before I started seeing them. The underlying idea is brilliant, the pace breathtaking and the research behind it phenomenal.

An absorbing, bewitching book written from the very clever premise that we know, from the outset who murderers and victim are. We just don't know why.

A dark, absorbing tale and a fascinating study of human nature. One could probably say this about most of Dicken's books but this one has always had the edge for me.

I love all seven books but if I had to choose just one it would be the story what brings the series to a close so wonderfully. (Spoiler alert) I wasn't just tearful when Harry walks, accompanied by the ghosts of his parents, to his death at the hands of Lord Voldemort, I was howling out loud. Even the dog came to see what was going on. And the simple elegance of the final resolution still takes my breath away when I think about it.