POTTER & Lewis TOP FOREST Favourite BOOK LIST

Just as lockdown kicked in back in March, Roger set about asking people to list their five favourite books - recommendations for a good read to keep us all occupied. The responses came in from people of all ages across the Forest, with their top fives posted on Reading the Forest's social media channels. Anna Grimmett has been looking at the lists, analysing the choices -  and reflecting on the books that appeared more frequently than any others....

Hello again, Anna here. After twenty seven of you gave your five favourite book choices, Roger asked me to compile a book list in order of popularity and it’s been fascinating to see the books you chose and the reasons why you chose them.  I was so pleased to be able to report back that a Forest book, Dennis Potter’s “The Changing Forest”, had taken joint top position along with C. S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, each having been chosen three times (although alphabetically I’ve popped Potter in at the number one spot).  Six books emerged as the most popular, the remaining four each having been chosen twice.  The rest of the books are listed in no particular order and I’ve highlighted Forest books for you in green.
 
Most Popular Book Choices
1. The Changing Forest, Dennis Potter 
2. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis 
3. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 
4. The Lost Words, Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris 
5. Macbeth, William Shakespeare
6. One Day, David Nicholls
 
With no prior knowledge of Dennis Potter’s work other than from the Reading the Forest website, I borrowed a copy to read to help me reflect on why the most popular books might have been chosen.  I struggled with the first few chapters and so a friend suggested I watch his Melvin Bragg interview from 1994, aired just a few months before he passed away. Although a very sad period in terms of Potter’s diagnosis, it came across as an honest portrayal of his life and work and I found further reading of his book much easier.  Those who chose it described it as providing “a rare and unique insight into a significant period of change in the Forest’s history” and being “a profound book on social change in the Forest in the late 1950s and 1960s”.  The style of writing and Potter’s frank and intimate descriptions gave me a real sense of this notable period of transition and how the resulting changes impacted so profoundly on Foresters.  I can see why it is regarded as being so influential.
A Google search of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” confirmed its popularity and it was no surprise that it generally ranked in the same position nationally as it did in the Forest.  There’s a timeless quality to the story, not just in terms of different generations who have enjoyed it, but also that as adults we are still pulled back to those visceral childhood memories of stepping into our own fantasy world, through our very own wardrobe and creating heroic adventures in our own imaginary wonderland (or is that just me?).
I have concentrated on the top two books for this piece, although I had hoped to be able to find a common theme running through the most popular choices.  As with the rest of the books on the list, the six most popular are also very diverse and personal and I’ve not yet been able to spot any connections.  I’d be interested to hear from you if you find any. It’s been a pleasure to learn which books have influenced people and to see so many Forest books chosen as favourites.

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Most Popular Book Choices:
1.          The Changing Forest, Dennis Potter 
2.         The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis 
3.         Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 
4.         The Lost Words, Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris 
5.         Macbeth, William Shakespeare
6.          One Day, David Nicholls
7.          1984, George Orwell  
8.         The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9.          Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
10.        A Night to Remember, Walter Lord
11.         Severn Tide, Brian Walters 
12.        A Gloucesterhire Lad, at Home and Abroad, F. W. Harvey 
13.        The Stolen Years, Hugh Falkus 
14.        Forest Humour, Harry Beddington 
15.        These Silent Mansions, A Life In Graveyards, Jean Sprakland 
16.        Dancing the Charleston, Jacqueline Wilson
17.        The World's Worst Children, David Walliams 
18.        A Place Called Perfect, Helena Duggan
19.        My Friend Walter, Michael Morpurgo
20.       Hetty Feather, Jacqueline Wilson
21.        The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman 
22.       La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman 
23.       The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness 
24.       Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo 
25.        The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson 
26.        We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen 
27.         Stick Man, Julia Donaldson 
28.        Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne 
29.        The Witcher: The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski
30.        Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
31.         The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
32.        Eragon, Christopher Paolini
33.        Confessions of a Sociopath, M.E. Thomas
34.        Thomas the Tank Engine, Wilbert Adrey
35.        A Squash and a Squeeze, Julia Donaldson
36.        Usborne Illustrated Classics for Boys, Robin Hood, Various 
37.    A Children’s Treasury of Milligan, Classic Stories & Poems, Spike Milligan
38.        Goosebumps, The Movie Novel, R. L. Stine
39.        Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
40.        Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
41.         Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank 
42.        Treasures of the Snow, Patricia St John
43.         Black Beauty, The Autobiography Of A Horse, Anna Sewell 
44.        When Blackbirds Sing, Martin Boyd
45.        Clean Straw for Nothing, George Johnston 
46.        The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, Louis de Bernières 
47.         The Music Shop, Rachel Joyce 
48.        Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte 
49.        Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare 
50.        The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
51.         The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
52.        My Family and Other Superheroes, Jonathan Edwards 
53.        The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald 
54.        On The Road, Jack Kerouac 
55.         Our Country’s Good, Timberlake Wertenbaker 
56.         The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho 
57.         2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke 
58.        The Complete Beatles Songs, by Steve Turner
59.         A Week’s Holiday in the Forest of Dean, John Bellows
60.        The Spitfire Story, Alfred Price
61.         Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin
62.        Shardlake Series, by C.J. Sansom
63.        The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
64.        Pride and PrejudiceJane Austen
65.        The Shropshire Lad, A.E. Housman
66.        Head Injury, A Practical Guide, Trevor Powell
67.        Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
68.        The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers
69.        The Concise British Flora in Colour, W Keble Martin
70.        The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh
71.         Head of State, Andrew Marr
72.        The Children Act, Ian McEwan
73.        The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
74.        Catlin’s Cove, Kim Simmonds 
75.        Germinal, Emile Zola 
76.       On Photography, Susan Sontag
77.       Geology of the Forest of Dean Coal and Iron Ore Field, F.M. Trotter 
78.       The Freeminers, Cyril Hart 
79.        A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 
80.       Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman 
81.        The Verderers and Forest Laws of Dean, Cyril Hart 
82.    The Forest of Dean: an Historical and Descriptive Account, H.G.Nicholls
83.       Forest of Dean:  Iron Making in the Olden Times, H.G. Nicholls 
84.       Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder 
85.       Harry Potter Series, J K Rowling 
86.       Lydmouth Crime Series, Andrew Taylor 
87.       Warren James and the Dean Forest Riots, Ralph Anstis 
88.       Exploring Historic Dean, John Sheraton & Rod Goodman 
89.       Student Diver Tool Box, Sub-Aqua Association 
90.       Goodnight Mr Tom, Michelle Magorian 
91.       Danny, The Champion of the World, Roald Dahl 
92.       Barbarian Days, William Finnegan 
93.       A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving 
94.       The Life Project, Helen Pearson 
95.       Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks 
96.       The Small Hand, Susan Hill
97.       Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres 
98.       Now All Roads Lead to France, Matthew Hollis 
99.       The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry Gerrard 
100.     A Story Like the Wind, Laurens van de Post
101.      Green Wood, Leonard Clark
102.     English Journey, J. B. Priestly 
103.     The Box of Delights, John Masefield 
104.     Old Peter’s Russian Tales, Arthur Ransome 
105.     Catch-22, Joseph Heller
106.     Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
107.     The Ginger Man, J. P. Donlevy
108.     Sepulchre, Kate Mosse
109.     Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
110.      The Lord of the Flies, William Golding 
111.       Four Kings, George Kimball 
112.      Pet Sematary, Stephen King 
113.      Captain Scott, Ranulph Fiennes 
114.      Affluenza, Oliver James
115.      Tony Benn: A Biography, Jad Adams
116.      Revolution, Russell Brand
117.      Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, Owen Jones
118.     My Story, Steven Gerrard
119.     The Edge of the Sword, Anthony Farrer-Hockley
120.     A Fool in the Forest, Leonard Clark
121.      F. W. Harvey, Soldier Poet, Anthony Boden
122.     Archaeology in Dean, by Cyril Hart 
123.     Landscapes, Robert Macfarlane
124.     I Am the Seed that Grew a Tree: a Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, Fiona Waters
125.     Hill Shepherd, a Photographic Essay, John & Elizabeth Forder 
126.     Chasing the Monsoon, Alexander Frater
​127.     The Leopard, Guiseppe di Lampedusa 
128.     Akenfield, Ronald Blythe 
129.     The Diary, Samuel Pepys 
130.     The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith 


 
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