3. Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons

'Ah, there you are Seth.'

The tale of Flora Poste's brave attempt to bring order and harmony to the chaotic lives of the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm is, to put it mildly, a work of quivering genius. Stella Gibbons decided to write a novel satirizing the overblown Victorian gothic novels of her childhood, and succeeded in writing a book which seems to encapsulate everything that is wonderful about English eccentricity. I hope she cried with laughter as she wrote it; I certainly cry with laughter every time I read it, which is approximately once a year - more if I can manage it.

I remember well the first time I discovered Flora and the Starkadders. I was home from university, miserable and dreading going back. My beautiful bibliophile mother made me a cup of hot chocolate, sat me down on the sofa, and handed me a book. 'Read this,' she said. 'It will make you feel better.' That was 15 years ago, and Cold Comfort Farm has been a regular source of solace and inspiration since then.

It certainly wouldn't be to everybody's taste. It's quite silly, in places, and there's something a little bit irritating about Flora's obsessive need for order, if I'm truthful, but the whole is so breath-snatchingly funny, so mind-ticklingly inventive, and ultimately so heart-soothingly affectionate that for a brief moment after reading it, the world takes on a rosy hue. I've tried reading Stella Gibbons' other novels, and they're pants, quite frankly. Cold Comfort Farm was her One-Hit Wonder, but what a hit it is. My mother and I converse freely in the strange lexicon of the Starkadders, and don't much care if others think us mad. To know Cold Comfort is to know great happiness. I only wish it were compulsory reading.