Now I'm usually at work today. I don't want my bookselling skills to get rusty, so for every like this post gets, I will fling out a book recommendation into the world. Get yer book recs here!

(How did someone make a gif of me without my knowledge?)

(Any take your fancy? @HerneHillBooks & @claphambooks are still taking orders & delivering direct from wholesalers, so bung them an email and support two excellent independent bookshops - emails should be on websites but if you can't see em, DM me)

1 Simply because I'm re-reading it RIGHT NOW, starting with @robinhobb's Assassin's Apprentice. The saga of Fitz & the Fool starts here, and immediately you know you're in the hands of a storytelling genius. For all fantasy fans (and everyone else, goddammit)

2 My go-to recommendation in the shop for anyone looking for fast-paced and gripping is Mick Herron's Slow Horses. A modern spy thriller series that is also very witty and extremely well written. I hold myself singlehandedly responsible for everyone in Clapham reading this

3 Sarah Waters' Fingersmith is my recommendation for people requiring EXTREME TWISTINESS in a book. It's also top notch historical fiction, a bit like Dickens but way sexier. You can't go wrong.

4 Everyone has read The Secret History, you've probably read The Goldfinch (and you should) but have you read The Little Friend by Donna Tartt? It doesn't get talked about as much but it's my fave. Hot & sticky southern gothic, & the best child character ever.

5 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is the book I recommend when people ask 'what's the best book you've read, like, ever?' (and they do ask that). Impossible to choose but this is easily in the top 5. Comics, war & the power of escapism.

6 I'm always trying to rec really grisly reads to people, but annoyingly they rarely go for it. When they are up for something properly horrific, I give them The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder - one of the scariest and weirdest reads ever.

7 If you want moving, gorgeously written retellings of Greek mythology, (and why wouldn't you?) you want Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller. As a big fan of witches and witchiness in general, I especially loved Circe - it's deeply weird & very human at the same time.

8 Want something that will make you feel better about life in general, but still with an edge of weirdness to it? Finn Family Moomintroll or The Summer Book by Tove Jansson are both brilliant and ever so slightly odd.

9 For fantasy that feels fresh and satisfyingly new, try The Unspoken Name by A. K. Larkwood. It has all the stuff I love most in fantasy - strange landscapes, characters that feel real, and snappy dialogue.

10 I'm a big fan of time travel. Read the great Octavia Butler's Kindred for a deeply moving and important example of the genre. It's the sort of book you read and then think about for a long time afterwards.

Here was number 11 (I ballsed up the thread somehow) https://twitter.com/sennydreadful/status/1243541102210105344

12 There are lots of reasons to read all of Guy Gavriel Kay's books, because he is amazing, but because I am selfish I always recommend my favourite, Under Heaven - a gorgeous novel that sweeps you away to another time and place, then repeatedly kicks you in the feels.

13 A lady came in the shop recently, picked up The Mirror & The Light and said 'what's this about then?', which reminded me, not everyone has read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Just one of the best books ever written, that's all, with one of the greatest fictional real people ever

14 And since I love historical fiction, Bernard Cornwell must be on this list. If like me you want SWORDS, read either his King Arthur trilogy (starting with The Winter King) or the Uhtred books (starting with The Last Kingdom) – they are both entirely excellent.

15 is SURPRISE! Some non-fiction - The Secret History of the Mongol Queens by Jack Weatherford is not only an exciting & extremely readable book, it also looks at history from an angle those of us raised in western schools will likely know little about

16 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is thoughtful, humane SF that (in my opinion) knocks the socks off a lot of other SF being written at the time. Strange, moving & beautiful, the final sequence of travel across the ice is incredible writing.

17 Fen by Daisy Johnson is a collection of short stories – filled with the unnerving atmosphere of folk horror but written with a literary sensibility, these are stories that will stick with you for while.

18 (I know I'm going slow with these buuut we're gonna be here a while anyway) Through the Woods by Emily Carroll is my first graphic novel recommendation - gorgeous art wrapped around gorgeously weird & unsettling folk horror

19 The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter is the spiritual grandmother-who-is-secretly-a-wolf of the previous book. Carter's weird, sexy, unnerving retellings of fairy tales are rightfully modern classics.

20 Did I do Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn yet? Sweaty, eerie, tense, and filled with some extremely fucked up characters, it's a masterclass in evasion and drawing a reader through a book, page by page.