MY SIX BEST BOOKS

BRIAN BLESSED, 80, made his name in Z-Cars in the early 1960s then appeared in TV series that included I, Claudius and The Black Adder and films including Flash Gordon. He directs Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web at The Mill in Sonning until September 9. millat sonning.com Absolute Pandemonium by Brian Blessed is out now (Pan, £8.99).

COSMOS by Carl Sagan

Abacus, £12.99 My biggest love is space and I’ve done training in preparation for what it would be like to go to Mars. I attended some of his lectures and this is a work of great hope. It covers time, space, history and our future.

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by HG Wells

Vintage, £6.99 I was gobsmacked when my teacher said there were worlds other than ours and then we had this on the radio.

It was sensational, especially the sound effects of the Martians dying. It’s imaginative, exciting literature.

I’m sure that the Milky Way is teeming with life.

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS by Gerald Durrell

Penguin, £8.99 I did a series of this with Hannah Gordon in the 1980s and Durrell was with us in Corfu. It’s beautifully written.

My next book will be about all the wild animals I’ve helped to

take back to their countries of origin.

TREASURE ISLAND by Robert Louis Stevenson OUP, £5.99

I always wanted to play Long John Silver and in 1986 I was cast in Return To Treasure Island. Though I love Treasure Island, it is quite a thin story and the writer of the TV series discovered the blueprint of a sequel [by Stevenson] which was better. It’s the best thing I’ve done.

THROUGH TIBET TO EVEREST by JBL Noel Out of print

Noel was the first white man to get within 40 miles of Everest then he filmed the Everest expedition of 1924 with the great explorer George Mallory. This is an amazing book about it.

I first read about Mallory in The Hotspur comic and I recreated his expedition in a documentary.

NO PLACE FOR MEN by Peter Mulgrew Out of print

This is about Mulgrew’s 1964 expedition to Mount Makalu to see if it would be possible to climb Everest without oxygen. It was all going well then at 27,900ft his lungs gave way and blood poured out of him. It’s a story of immense courage.

I’ve been higher than that but I have a gift for altitude.