Tim Trent asked Tim Trent:

Are there any books that turned a light on for you, perhaps an epiphany moment?

Tim Trent That is a really good question, originally asked to me by message from a reader here. This is the answer I gave then.

I think it's varied as I've grown older. The Persian Boy was the first book that made me realise I was not alone, coupled with Lord Dismiss Us, both when I was a teen in the late 1960s.

While Mary Renault has not faded with my ageing, and her works remain vibrant and meaningful, Michael Campbell's writing felt turgid and inflated when I read it in around 2000.

Very few other works have made as great an impression on me as those two, though. I am always impressed with Goodbye, Mr. Chips! and To Serve Them All My Days, but have seen movies or TV serials based on the books, never having read them. They portray a world I almost inhabited as a chid and wanted to emulate as an adult, but you will know from Queer Me!: Halfway Between Flying and Crying that I felt unable to become a schoolmaster

A voracious reader most of my life I consume books. I can't even recall most of those I've consumed, as my book list here shows! It takes a lot to make books stand out for me. I think those two books back in my teenage years were the epiphany ones.

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