Published on 12, July, 2020
What books have subtley influence you, ones that you read as a child? For me it was Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, as well as being a good adventure story, it introduced me to a whole world of folklore and what I call mystic Britain. You have the history of Britain and then you have the mystic history, the Britain of the things seen from the corner of the eye, the things that you know are there, that you can sense and feel, but can rarely see and other people think you're being daft for caring about. As well as all the strange rituals and folk customs around the country, the fertility dances of Morris Men, to the Hobby Horses and corn dollies. The pull of ancient sacred places, stone circles, holy wells, some very ancient churches, a whole sacred landscape that we're only just rediscovering through the use of such technology as LIDAR. Some customs that cross continenets and generations, throwing coins in a wishing well, these places have often been in use for thousands of years.
That one book set me on a journey thats still ongoing.
For me it was Isaac Asimovs Foundation trilogy - I picked these up in a bookshop while on a tour around the highlands of Scotland and they gave me an insight into looking at things on a much larger scale, showing how predictable people are in large enough numbers.
The artwork is also pretty cool - the three books make up one image that I have framed even now (over 40 years later):
It was a big infuence into my academic route through physics at university.
It's over 50 years since I read the Foundation trilogy. I enjoyed them at the time. I don't enjoy reading fiction any more. For years I believed other people couldn't imagine characters and scenes, just like me. The 1st realisation that wasn't true was doing guided imagery for anxiety . I couldn't do it at all. However it has been used for many decades, so there must be those who have benefitted from it. Several years later I came across mention of aphantasia. I have total aphantasia. I don't read fiction nowadays, because I can't do what the vast majority of other people can do.