MY SIX BEST BOOKS

JOHN LYNCH, 57, is an actor and novelist who has appeared in In The Name Of The Father, Cal and Sliding Doors. He can be seen in the second series of Tin Star on Sky Atlantic and Now TV on January 24.

LE MORTE D’ARTHUR VOL.1 by Sir Thomas Malory

Penguin, £9.99

I read the King Arthur fables when I was 13. Growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, there was sectarianism and violence but when I found this I entered a world where men behaved with honour.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel García Márquez

Penguin, £8.99

I was at drama college when I read this. I fell in love with how it captured the mysteries of this world and how people never truly die so long as they’re remembered. I’m half-Italian so I can relate to the superstition and how that breeds wonderful theatricality.

HUNGER by Knut Hamsun

Canongate, £9.99

My second novel is influenced by this starving artist’s journey through the streets of Oslo trying to be a writer. It’s considered one of the

first modern psychological novels even though it was written in 1890. I liked the writing and I identified with how unreliable the mind can be.

THE DENIAL OF DEATH by Ernest Becker Souvenir, £16

A philosophical treatise on how death underpins everything we do. I came to this 20 years ago, around the time I stopped drinking.

I became fascinated with defining the world around me, which I’d spent a long time ignoring.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF LIVING by Joseph Campbell

Out of print

A collection of Campbell’s writings about life’s journey.

When I was eight I wanted to be a novelist and he is the one who gave me the permission to have a go years later. I’ve had two novels published. I love acting but I have this secret world of writing that’s great.

THE OUTSIDER by Albert Camus Penguin, £7.99

I love the way he captures the dispassion with which this guy kills a man.

I love the bravery of the book in confronting convention and morality.

Then there’s a wonderful part at the end where he rails against a priest. Religion didn’t work for me as a child and it works even less now.