Time and Again by Jack Finney
A Stephen King recommendation and I am so glad I read it – a richly evocative and massively inventive time travel story. Impossible to put down, it sucks you into the protagonist’s world unlike any other book.
Douglas Adams
An amazing wordsmith – when you learn that one of his key influences was P.G. Wodehouse, it makes even more sense. Ideas proliferate – the fairy cake (still the best way of capturing the idea of how very small we all are), the infinite improbability drive, the Babel fish.
Matt Haig
Haig captures what it is to be human so very well…he is also stunningly good at evoking mental health in a compassionate way.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
An amazing achievement, so deftly creating a very real world by heightening attitudes to be found in society about books and learning. In addition, as with Haig and Finney, you’re up really close to the protagonist – you live and breathe the story with them.
Patricia Highsmith
Highsmith is incredible – to encourage empathy for characters such as Tom Ripley is no easy feat. To want him to succeed is quite another!
Mike Hickman (@MikeHicWriter) is a writer from York, England. He has written for Off the Rock Productions (stage and audio), including 2018’s “Not So Funny Now” about Groucho Marx and Erin Fleming. He has recently been published in EllipsisZine, Dwelling Literary, Bandit Fiction, Nymphs, Flash Fiction Magazine, Brown Bag, and Safe and Sound Press.