As someone who has just finished decades of a 2 hour each way commute by train, I have read lots of books. Admittedly most would definitely fall into the category of Pulp Fiction, nevertheless the quantity if not the quality is impressive.

I have read lots of Jonathan Moeller and Lindsay Buroker, and currently for everyday light reading I am part through Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. Recent non fiction contenders would be If  You Fall by Karen Darke  and Pants of Perspective by Anna MacNuff.

My overall recommendation of recent years would be the epic saga centred around Fitz and the Fool by Robin Hobb. This is an incredible body of work that has kept me enthralled for years. Robin Hobb engineers a slow burn that means the peak is all the more explosive. This sixtieth is about re-reading some books, and while I would love to re-visit the worlds of Fitz again, I doubt I could do this and everything else in the 60at60 year.

My criteria for this sixtieth was books that I read at an earlier age that immediately spring to my mind as having left a lasting impression.

So they are:

• Dracula by Bram Stoker - everyone has heard of Dracula but I didn't read the book until I was in my early twenties and then I was surprised by the clever way it tells its story.
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer  - there are a number of books (and films) about the 1996 Everest disaster but this one sticks with me.
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - introduced to me as the accessible route into Solzhenitsyn and read just after my college years
• Space Below My Feet by Gwen Moffat - definitely an inspiration to me during my climbing years; I even tried a few routes barefoot.
• The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - one from my commuting years. A very clever but absorbing book, and darker than the film.
• No Tigers in the Hindu Kush by Philp Tranter/ Nigel Tranter - my boy's own type adventure story book. Philip and friends literally "just did it" on an expedition to Afghanistan in the mid 60's.