WITH so many of our readers self-isolating, some of them for the next three months, the Gazete and Herald will be running a new column on books, authors, and literature in general - and we'd like to invite you all to join in.

Our new columnist, Lance Christopher, taught English for 34 years, most recently at a Chippenham school, and went on to complete a research MA in retirement.

He says: "I am now self-isolating for 12 weeks, being one of the 1.5m to receive a letter last week from the NHS. People are going to be reading a lot more over the coming months with extra time on their hands, and with so many other leisure pursuits now closed off.

"And it is still easy to get hold of new books via Kindle, or by purchasing them online.

"My intention is to talk about good books in the hope that readers might be drawn to seek out one or two of those I mention."

The new series of articles will begin next week, looking at the works of one of his favourite novelists, Graham Swift. Future columns will take a look at biographies, George Orwell, humorous writing, Philip Larkin and Pat Barker’s First World War trilogy

We'd like to hear from Gazette readers which authors, aspects of reading, and types of books they would like to see put under the microscope - and why.

When the BBc first began nationwide polls of our favourite books, almost 20 years ago, the top 10 was a surprising-to-some mix of old and new

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

I have suggested the title ‘Read on…’ for the article, but you might have a better idea.

I have taken as a heading a quote from Graham Swift - ‘works of fiction’, which I refer to later.

I thought of Lance Christopher as a pen name – Lance as an anagram of ‘Calne’ – Christopher, being my first largely unused first name.

I wonder if this first article needs a short introduction along the lines of This week we start a new weekly column about books and authors by Lance Christopher. He will be discussing a variety of writers and types of writing, and will be inviting readers to share recommendations of their own. In his first column Lance writes about one of his favourite novelists – Graham Swift….