When I started to think about what I would discuss in this piece, I realised that my favourite reading over the past few decades has been almost entirely non-medical and non-psychiatric. I have read a lot of plays and biographies, as well as a fair few novels and books on art or other themes. And of course there are all the books I have bought and still haven't read. I decided that I would choose books which I think about at least once a month, if not more, whether I read them 4 or 40 years ago. I structured the resulting list chronologically, in terms of when I first read them.