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    Celebrities' Favourite Books: In Aid of the Alzheimer's Society
    Celebrities' Favourite Books: In Aid of the Alzheimer's Society
    Celebrities' Favourite Books: In Aid of the Alzheimer's Society
    Ebook157 pages59 minutes

    Celebrities' Favourite Books: In Aid of the Alzheimer's Society

    By Jeff Thorburn

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    About this ebook

    Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, characterised by mental deterioration and degeneration of the brain, is distressing for both sufferers and those who care for them, and Celebrities' Favourite Books is dedicated to those affected.
    Containing around 100 letters from well-known people nominating their all-time favourite reads and explaining their choice, this book is designed both to stimulate an interest in reading novels and also to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s disease.
    With a fitting foreword by Princess Alexandra, the aim of the book is to highlight the plight of sufferers and raise awareness of, and funds for, the valuable work carried out by the Alzheimer’s Society.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApex Publishing Limited
    Release dateJun 22, 2011
    ISBN9781908382887
    Celebrities' Favourite Books: In Aid of the Alzheimer's Society

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      Book preview

      Celebrities' Favourite Books - Jeff Thorburn

      cause.

      Brian Aldiss

      Writer/Critic

      It is difficult to choose an entirely favourite book. Over the space of a long lifetime there are several I would once have named. For instance, as a young boy, I would probably have named THE WORLD IN DARKNESS by Murray Roberts, an adventure featuring Captain Justice, my boyhood hero!

      Later on, there are several of Thomas Hardy’s novels, most notably THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, but also his beautiful smaller novels, such as THE WOODLANDERS, the inescapable choice of Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and some of Charles Dickens’ novels - GREAT EXPECTATIONS in particular. Rather less obviously, I would name THE LOST STEPS by the Cuban-born writer Alejo Carpentier, which my wife and I have read time and time again.

      But my favourite novel of later years is not one of these illustrious titles. For me, the most cherished novel is Leo Tolstoy’s most neglected novel RESURRECTION. I have three translations of this novel on my shelves, of which the one I most prefer is the translation made by Rosemary Edmonds, published by Penguin Books.

      This is the novel the mighty Tolstoy wrote in 1899, in his old age. He died in 1910, at a time when a camera was present to record the masses who attended his passing and to pay him homage.

      RESURRECTION provides us with a panorama not only of Russia, but of humanity in general; it depicts something of the aristocratic life as rendered in ANNA KARENINA, while also giving a vivid picture of the underworld.

      The chief character in the book is Count Nekhlyudov. Nekhlyudov in his aristocratic youth has wronged a woman, by name Maslova, who was in his employ. Many years later he finds himself acting as judge over a small number of criminals, among whom Maslova is a defendant. Maslova, although still beautiful, has been hardened by her experiences among the lower orders of society into whose company she has been plunged. It is Nekhlyudov’s decision to make up for the wrong he did the young woman. When he asks her to forgive him, that is something she cannot and will not do. So this great story continues with the Count eventually deciding that he must marry Maslova. He follows Maslova into exile in Siberia.

      Among the many difficult questions Tolstoy asks is this one in Chapter 30: Why and by what right does one class of people lock up, torture, exile, flog and kill other people, when they themselves are no better than those whom they torture, flog and kill?

      The whole theme of the book concerns the importance of repentance and forgiveness. I find it profound and salutary for us today, when so many films from Hollywood - to take an instance - seem to glorify Revenge, the destructive opposite of Forgiveness.

      The more I re-read this, Tolstoy’s last novel, the more I am struck by its grandeur and by the many characters who inhabit it. Also, I have deep sympathy for the concluding paragraph of the novel, which runs as follows:

      That night an entirely new life began for Nekhlyudov, not so much because he had entered into new conditions of life but because everything that happened to him from that time on was endowed with an entirely different meaning for him. How this new chapter of his life will end, the future will show.

      My own experience convinces me that Tolstoy is as penetratingly truthful here as in the rest of his book.

      Mohammed Al Fayed

      Owner Of Harrods

      My favourite book is BRING HOME THE REVOLUTION (How Britain can live the American dream) by Jonathan Freedland.

      I am very taken by this book (published in 1998 by Fourth Estate) because it echoes my own view of what is wrong with the way Britain is governed and sets out in a clear and amusing way why things have gone wrong and what it is about the American way of life and political system that the British would do well to adopt.

      Freedland looks at the way the British have imported American culture and decides that we are not getting the best of it - it is richer than we ever imagined. I conclude that the dreams of many of today’s British reformers have already been made real in the United States. The American ideal is actually our own. Contrary to received wisdom, Britain did have a revolution - but we had it in America. Now is the time for British republicanism.

      Jeffrey Archer

      Writer

      I’m afraid it is impossible for me to name just one favourite book, so here is a list of my all-time favourites:

      DISRAELI by Robert Blake

      Disraeli is for me a political hero, and this particular biography is written with such style and academic muscle that I remain in awe of the author.

      THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ by F Scott Fitzgerald

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