Aren't you glad I've given you permission to read a classic?

I love reading but its not easy to find time in the day to read a book. It seems like a terrible indulgence, a luxury of self-gratification on a par with eating an entire chocolate cake by myself…especially when there's so much laundry and shopping and cleaning and writing and other responsibilities to take care of.  That's why I took great delight in instructing the readers of my book Change Your Life This Year (book 1) to find time in the month of April to just sit down, with a cup of coffee (and preferably a large slice of chocolate cake) and read a classic. 

In my book, I list my Top Ten recommendations for starting out with the classics and in a previous post, I featured an interview with author Fiona Veitch Smith who also shared her favourite classic reads with us. 

I recently discovered this no-nonsense book-lover on YouTube. I think that Samantha, owner of the YouTube channel Novels and Nonsense, has made a superb set of recommendations of which classics to read on beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, so I do urge you to watch the video below (be aware, Samantha speaks as rapidly as a sten gun so..listen up!)

At the end of the day, reading is about enjoyment, about being transported to another world. Another delightful YouTube discovery this week was this tribute to the classics of childhood by Brian Patten. It's moving and beautiful. 

It leads me to believe that, perhaps, the very best place to start if you're going to tackle the classics, is with the classics of childhood. The Narnia stories by CS Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Dr Doolittle by Hugh Lofting (check out my video Lunch with Hugo to see the little row of houses that they used as Dr Doolittle's surgery in the BBC adaptation of the books..its just behind the man who waves at me from his tractor). After all, its never too late to have a happy childhood. 

Who were your favourite authors and what books made an impression on you as a child?