The May shortlist

‘We write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself around every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver’ Virginia Woolf, 'Orlando'

This month's stack came about thanks to curtailed visits to the bookstore and the enforced closure of the library. Armed with duster and polish I ventured into the deepest recesses of the bookshelves to rediscover those books that have travelled with me from student digs through to first flats and bank-breaking mortgages. The covers may have lost their lustre and the pages have developed an odd musty scent but there's a satisfying feeling in rediscovering a great book.

If lock-down has any upside, the chance to delve deep into the stacks has to be up there. For me, this meant a classic re-read from Jack Kerouac, a second attempt (after 20 years) of finishing Virginia Woolf's Orlando and another go at Pride and Prejudice.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928) - first picked up in 1994
Everyone's life is made up of distinctly different chapters but Orlando’s journey through time (and gender) is extraordinary. Virginia Wool’s fictionalized memoir is a completely unrestrained fantasy with a central conceit, a time-travelling narrator, which allows Woolf to comment on everything from class and social mobility to gender politics. A staggering literary achievement that’s as fresh in the 2020s as it was in the 1920s.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957) - first read and loved in 1997

In the same decade that Walt Disney presented Disneyland's 'Frontierland' and 'Main Street USA' Jack Kerouac gave us route 6, hipsters, beat-up jalopies, apple pie and dusty railway sidings. This paradox is alive and well in the USA today. A Ulysses for the Beat Generation or a rambling road trip? The truth is that 'On the Road' is both. Like Joyce, Kerouac captured generational anxiety that still continues today.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) - first read and hated in 1995
Fine country houses, assemblies and balls; Austen's rules of civility offer a welcome respite during the Corona lockdown. The plot is laboured in places but kept alive thanks to Mrs Bennett's relentless determinism and Lydia's immature gossipping which would be at home is any reality TV show!