I was persuaded to take part in one of those Facecloth round-robins, in which I was asked to name ten favourite books “without thinking too hard”. Here is my list (A-Z by author):

1. Watt, Samuel Beckett
2. Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead, Barbara Comyns
3. The Household Wreck, Thomas De Quincey
4. Amphigorey, Edward Gorey
5. The Falls, Peter Greenaway
6. Bartleby The Scrivener, Herman Melville
7. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
8. W or The Memory Of Childhood, Georges Perec
9. The Crying Of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
10. The Purple Cloud, M P Shiel

Do not be confused by No. 5. The screenplay of Greenaway’s majestic film is (or was) available in paperback, and takes the form of a continuous piece of prose.