Based on the edge of Trowbridge in Wiltshire but at present spending the working week in Bristol and Bath, I find that even my train journeys don't provide enough time to read everything I want to get through.

I like reading a good variety of books and I would say there's a 60/40 split of fiction/factual. I read quite a bit of philosophy, psychology, politics and popular science but by far the most of my non-fiction reading is about history.

My love of history is reflected in my fiction tastes. I love historical novels and am a sucker for historical whodunnits! Other than that I tend to prefer 'classics' such as Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Wharton etc. but thanks to bookcrossing have also discovered some very good modern novels.

I am a keen writer (currently working on a trilogy set during the English Civil War) and walker (I spend most weekends traipsing through fields and up hills) so I find my spare time somewhat under pressure!


My favourite books include (in no particular order...):
'Buddenbrooks' by Thomas Mann
'Brother of the More Famous Jack' by Barbara Trapido
'Lincoln' by Gore Vidal
'Persuasion' by Jane Austen
'Letters to a Young Contrarian' by Christopher Hitchens
'Eleanor of Aquitaine' by Alison Weir
'The Book of Disquiet' by Fernando Pessoa
'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy
'House of Sand and Fog' by Andre Dubus III
'The Catcher in the Rye' by J. D. Salinger
'Middlemarch' by George Eliot
'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder
'Katherine' by Anya Seton
'The Age of Innocence' by Edith Wharton
'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith
'The Leopard' by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
'No Signposts in the Sea' by Vita Sackville-West
'In Praise of Idleness' by Bertrand Russell

My wishlist currently looks like this:

www.bookcrossing.com/---/empressmatilda/