Three Men in a Boat
This was the first book that made me laugh out loud. I read it in my late teens and until then I hadn’t discovered the joy of a comic novel. Anything I’d read previously had been school texts and, I’m afraid to say, I found them all rather dull. But suddenly here was something wonderfully uplifting which spoke volumes about the myriad idiosyncrasies of human behaviour, whether it was relaying the story of Uncle Podger trying to hang a picture or describing the herculean attempt to open a tin of pineapple without a tin opener.