50 books to change your life

World Book Day has come and gone. Has it made any difference to your life? On World Book Day every child in this country was said to have received a pound book token. What could you do with that?
A pound book token would certainly not buy any of the 50 books which The Independent lists. The literary editor has chosen 50 books from the last 53 years and says why you should read them.
I can think of some reasons why I should not read them. Our house is already overflowing with books which I spend my time wondering how I can move or get rid of. Miles Kington recently told of how on his visit to second-hand bookshops he waited for his moment and then actually put some of his books onto the shelves. As for buying any more his wife would not let him.
But what does the literary editor of The Independent want me to read? I have to confess that I have only read about three of them. Some of the others had been on the reading lists for IVF Graduate Conferences in the distant past, so I do know a bit about Marshall McCluhan, Chomsky and Popper.
But no Spock. Our family predated him. Elizabeth David? Yes. My generation, who got married when things were still rationed after the war, still regard her as a great liberating influence showing us that there was a life beyond spam and dried eggs. Rachel Carson is mentioned as a prophet before her time, but some Christians were taking notice even then, and were prophets before their time as well. Stephen Hawking is in the list - well, I suppose many of us have tried to get to the end of that.
Wild Swans is more recent and anyone interested in China has read it. I could never bring myself to read The Female Eunuch on the train because of its lurid cover. But there is not a Christian book as far as I can see though James Watson, Richard Dawkins and Wittgenstein are all there.
It would need a statistician and facilities far beyond us to find out how many of the people who started these books reached the end, and how they affected their lives. But it does bring home to us that for many people a Christian book or even the Bible does not enter their thoughts.
What would you put into such a list? In the past EN has had articles on books to take on holiday. I would like to propose a variant of this. If in retirement you had to move to a smaller house, which books would you take with you?
More seriously, what does it say to us to find that there are no Christian books among the 50 mentioned? Are we in the situation of Bishop Butler in the 18th century when he wrote in his Analogy of Religion: 'It has come to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious.'
How should we respond? Are we to fight for intellectual respectability? Are we to look for an author who will put the Christian viewpoint back on the popular bookshelf? Or are books themselves outdated?

50 books to change your life

World Book Day and 50 books which The Independent recommends

John Marsh

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