For the Christmas edition of Critical Mass, Dave Middleton asked contributors for lists of twelve: books, songs, films; whatever we like. So naturally I chose books. Now Critical Mass is an overtly political project. All its writers are socialists but we don’t always write about socialism. And we don’t just read socialist books.

So I will start with where I live, and Norman Nicholson, who lived his whole life in Cumbria. His Portrait of the Lakes takes in the whole of the area, not only the tourist attractions in the National Park, but also the industrial heritage along the coast and describes how the history of people who have lived and worked here are as important as the natural history of lakes and mountains in shaping this unique landscape which also shapes us.

Nicholson was a poet, and it is to poetry I now turn. I begin with Alan Bennet’s Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin. Six white men and part of the canon. I chose it because it is always good to read what good writers think of other good writers and Bennett’s mini essays are a delight.

For contrast I have chosen She is Fierce: Brave Bold and Beautiful Poems by Women, edited by Ana Sampson. It has everybody from Maya Angelou to Dorothy Wordsworth and its earliest writer is Sappho from Classical Greece.

I have been taken up by the classics recently aided by three writers. Carlo Rovelli entranced me with his book Reality Is Not What It Seems; The Journey to Quantum Gravity which begins 26 centuries ago with a gripping discussion of the contribution of classical philosophy to modern science.

Natalie Haynes is an erudite and entertaining author whose Pandora’s Jar: Women in Greek Myths uses cultural references from Beyoncé to Euripedes to show how Greek mythology has shaped and been shaped by western culture and she employs wit and scholarship to reclaim it from the dead white men who dominate the literature.

Mary Beard is another classicist whose short book, Women and Power: A Manifesto, shows how classical culture has been wielded both for and against women, most infamously in the depictions of Trump as Perseus holding up the head of Hilary Clinton as Medusa. Haynes has a lot to say about this as well in Pandora’s Jar.

Mary Beard described Clive James book, Latest Readings as ‘sanity, humour and acuity in the face of death.’ Diagnosed with terminal leukaemia in 2010, he wrote this about the books he had to read again when he knew he was going to die. James has been called a reader of genius. But he is also an accomplished writer, a poet, a translator of Dante’s Divine Comedy and probably the finest cultural critic of the twentieth century.

If you want to understand a country read it’s novelists. And Independent People by Nobel prize winner, Halldór Laxness is a treasure that does this for Iceland. I am forever grateful to my son who bought this for me when he was on work experience in Iceland building a footpath along the route of a glacier that has now succumbed to global warming.

My next book is Prayer for the Living by Ben Okri, probably best known for his Booker Prize winning novel about his homeland of Nigeria, The Famished Road. But in this collection of short stories he travels the world in space and time from London to the Andes, back to Byzantium and into timeless tales that could be happening at any time, anywhere. Ben Okri’s advice is to read slowly. His books are so full of juice we have to squeeze them slowly so we do not waste a drop.

If you are going to be a writer you need to understand your subject and be able to communicate it to the uninitiated. A prime example is linguist, David Crystal. His book, A Little Book of Language is a delight, written for children. So buy it for your children but read it yourself.

Good writers understand the relationship with their readers and good readers, even if we can only aspire to the accolade delivered to Clive James as ‘a reader of genius,’ need to understand the creative process. So Philip Pullman’s Daemon Voices: On Stories And Story Telling is an obvious choice. I am grateful because it persuaded me to read Paradise Lost, the basis for his Dark Materials trilogy, another set of books so well written that children and adults can read them with equal profit.

But, as David Crystal reminds us, language is not just about words. Texting, emoticons and rebus symbols are all part of modern literature. Philip Pullman pays tribute to illustrators as well as authors. The ultimate illustrator has to be the author of a graphic novel. I wanted to go with In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way by Stéphane Heuet/Marcel Proust. But although I bought it I have not read it yet. I have read Pullman’s recommendation, Maus by Art Spiegelmann, a stark and moving representation of his father’s experience of the Holocaust as a Jew in Poland.

So those are my twelve books. Astute readers will notice that I have managed to slip in a few extra titles along the way. No book stands in isolation. It comes out of an author’s reading as well as their experience and reading it will trigger another writer to create.

Literature is thus a collaborative process. Not just between writers. But between readers and writers. My reading of these authors does not just contribute to my writing. It informs my actions. And that is one reason why I write, to influence how you, the reader acts. And the conversation between reader and writer is a two way street that influences the way I write.