MembroPhilJackson

Over the years I've probably cleared out as many books as I now have on the shelves. What is left consists of books I love and have had for years and reread many times, books I've had for years and never got around to reading or started but never finished, course texts from Uni - I love my classics - all read (mostly, but certainly all the novels,and books acquired over the years in the usual way by the exchange of money and read once. I don't know (yet) exactly how many I've got; something in the hundreds.

Most vile male (fictional) character on my shelves: Cardinal Monticelso (later Pope Paul IV) in The White Devil by John Webster.
I saw an excellent theatre production of this a few years ago. The actor who played Monticelso simply oozed malevolence. As the play progressed he made your flesh crawl.

Most vile female (fictional) character on my shelves:
Netta Longdon in 'Hangover Square' by Patrick Hamilton.
She doesn't eat babies or anything but, apart from being beautiful in a kind of obvious way, her personality is just utterly repellant. She has not a single saving grace. Simply loathsome. Yuch!

Strongerst female characters:

Ma Joad in 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck.

Vittoria Corombona in 'The White Devil' by John Webster.
She makes an enemy who conceives a wholly irrational hatred of her, competely out of proportion to her offence. He sets out to destroy her. Throughout the play he inflicts the cruellest psychological torments on her, kills everything and everyone she has. Reduces her utterly. Then it is time for his revenge. Vittoria has nothing now, with no one else to lose or to protect, she has only herself. She stands up to him and in front of his supporters pours out her contempt for him, her utter derision. She shows him himself and tears him to pieces. She is doomed but magnificent.

Makes me blub every time - the last line of 'The Grapes of Wrath.'

I live in a Northern English city which in places used to remind me of Viriconium. Or is it the other way round? Not so much nowadays with all the development that's gone on.

My tastes in books is pretty wide ranging. I like vampire books. The inherent tensions of being a vampire I find fascinating. I really like books that explore that theme and find new angles on it.

Magic Realism too. Flights of the imagination. Books that really take you somewhere else.

In the past few years I've been reading quite a few history books. I loved history at school but was crap at it. It was all names, and dates. 'One fucking thing after another,' as somebody said in Alan Bennet's The History Boys. It was the broad sweep of history that interested me. The way ordinary people's lives changed. Or the ways people had their lives changed for them. How societies changed.

In 2018 I published my first novel (Goddess) so now feel qualified to call myself a writer.