• On Writing – Stephen King
• How to Make Love Like a Porn Star – Jenna Jameson
• Raw Spirit – Iain Banks
• Slash – Slash
• 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed – Melissa P
• The Hammer Story – Marcus Hearn, Alan Barnes
• Schott’s Almanac – an annual essential
• Richard Pryor - Richard Pryor
• The Kenneth Williams Diaries
• XXX 30 Porn Star Portraits
• Sybil: The True Story of the Woman with 16 Personalities – Flora Rheta Scheiber

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J. K. Rowling
• Northern Lights – Philip Pullman
• Thirty Something – Mike Gayle
• Others – James Herbert
• Flowers in the Attic - Virginia Andrews
• Any of the Scarpetta novels after ‘The Body Farm’
• Labyrinth - Kate Mosse

And that reminds me, I’ve yet to read anything decent from the Richard & Judy Book club - despite how they fawn over every novel as if it’s the best thing ever written. I mean, Jeez, can’t they turn round just once, and say: ‘no, that was crap. I thought it would be good but I was wrong’? Maybe not.

And I know, I know, I’m sure they think wonders of me.

Bram Stoker
Dracula is simply superb.

Conrad Williams (www.conradwilliams.net)

A bit of a cheat as he is my creative writing teacher. Saying that, you really need to read ‘London Revenant’ if you want urban horror or ‘Rain’ if you want to be swallowed by claustrophobia – the man’s a morbid genius. Multi-award winning and well respected, Conrad can only be a few sentences from hitting the big time - and no one is more deserving.

Richard Matheson
‘Hell House’, ‘I Am Legend’, ‘The Shrinking Man’ and ‘Duel’ – enough said.

Shirley Jackson
‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is so creepy it’s like spiders crawling through your veins.

Stephen King
I’m a hopeful horror author – it would be a horror to leave him out.

Ramsey Campbell (www.ramseycampbell.com)

For exactly the same reason as Stephen King. He's a horror master. Plain and simple. Thanks to him, my nightmares developed into stories.

Graham Joyce (www.grahamjoyce.net)
His writing actually takes you away to another plain. I know how corny that sounds, but it's the truth. When you open the cover and turn the pages, you feel the man is talking to you - and you don't want him to stop. Upon finishing 'Smoking Poppy', I had to write to the man to tell him how beautiful the experience had been.

Emily Bronte
‘Wuthering Heights’: the only book to make me cry

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
And not just for Sherlock Holmes, either

Mo Hayder (www.mohayder.net)

The woman is warped (read ‘The Treatment’ for confirmation) but absolutely brilliant at what she does. Her latest, ‘Ritual’ blows all other crime writing out of the water, and her last novel, ‘Pig Island’, had my stomach turning for days. ‘Birdman’ is possibly the best debut novel since ‘The Wasp Factory’.

Iain Banks (www.iain-banks.net)
One of the few authors I salivate over. I’ve read everything he’s published – even his Sci-Fi and I hate Sci-Fi – and it was his journey with the single malt that got me into my national drink. If I had an tenth of his talent, I’d be a very happy man.

Haruki Murakami
Philosophy, plots that go nowhere, men obsessed by a girl’s ears, lost sheep, self-isolation in a well, World War One horrors. All of these and more are in Murakami’s work and he is simply a master at making you want to read more. The amazing thing is, I can read his work and then sit back and ask myself, ‘what was that about?’ That’s a genius at work.

Helen Walsh
People, I have one simple thing to say: read her debut novel, ‘Brass’. Touching, shocking, upsetting and beautiful. A wonderful, wonderful writer.