Tricky literary choice

I've been engaged in some enjoyable emotional wrestling of a literary kind - trying to choose some books of great importance to me.  And I'm wondering how you'd get on with the challenge?

Monday (April 23rd) is World Book Night, and I've been invited to Plymouth to be part of a panel to discuss some of our favourite books. But the cunning librarians have made it a lot tougher than that.

They've asked us to pick three books, in these categories -

1. You favourite book as a child

2. The book which has influenced you the most

3. Your guilty reading pleasure.

It's taken a great deal of thought, to say the least. Part three I managed to nail without too much agonising.  Number one took quite a while - there are so many to choose from!  Books were a great companion to me as a child and how many I read and delighted in.

But it's question two which took the real time, partly as it's such a smart one. Not my favourite book, but the one which had the most influence, and that's very different.  I spent several hours in my study, going through the shelves of books, narrowing the list down and then debating with myself which deserved to win - and, importantly, why.

It was quite a task, but ultimately an enjoyable and very rewarding one.  And it taught me a big lesson, about just how much of an influence books have had in my life.  I'm forbidden from revealing any answers here, but I'm looking forward to the event (Plymouth Central Library, 7pm onwards) to see what books the others on the panel have chosen and what the audience think.  I'll reveal my choices after that.

Finally, I'm not talking about An Unnecessary Murder in this blog, despite it being just four days away from the play opening, as I'm already in quite enough of a state about it!  But I think we're on track and doing ok... think.... hope... pray... beseech the powers that be etc etc.

And lastly a tune, and again with remarkable planning, here's one to go with the books and reading theme (told you this was all planned, didn't I? It's nigh on seamless!)

My choice of song is  Wonderful World, by Sam Cooke.  It's just a delighful piece of work, simple but joyous and endearing.  All say aaaahhhh!