Due (perhaps) to the spurious air of authority and reliability I accidentally and occasionally convey I seem to have become something of an Oprah-esque book recommender at work.

It started, innocently enough, with a casual mention (to a colleague) of one of my very favourite sci-fi/horror novels: Richard Matheson's moving, melancholy and magnificent I am Legend. On the spot, says he, "Order that for me".

Normally, of course, that would seem a strange (even overbearing and bossy) request but given that I work in a bookshop it was none too unusual. Away I went and made it so, but not before another overhearing colleague pitched in to ask for a copy too. In such moments one realises the modest power one possesses…and the responsibility it entails.

What if they hated the book? What if they saw the very recommendation as the work of a weirdo and a freak? What then?

Fortunately (as it happens) they both enjoyed the lovely tale of Robert Neville's lonely fight for life. So much so (in fact) that I was then asked for further suggestions. Searching that part of my brain that wheezes and dribbles along during working hours I dug out a few titles: Day of the Triffids, The Forever War, and (out of a slightly lefter field) The Island of Dr. Moreau.

News on how the new book club picks have been received has yet to reach me but I expect (at the very least) a certain degree of freaked out revulsion at the grotesque carry-on of Dr. Moreau and his visceral creations. It's a tad gob-smackerous (and humbling) to think that Wells published said work while still a young-ish man of 30. In terms of power, punch and dread-soaked horror, he never surpassed it.

Take the opening of Chapter 13 ("The Sayers of the Law") for a small and skin-crawling example:

Then something cold touched my hand. I started violently, and saw close to me a dim pinkish thing, looking more like a flayed child than anything else in the world.

Aaaaaahhhhh!

He who breaks the law and all that…