I’m three quarters through a book called The Collector, the debut novel by John Fowlers published in 1963.

I’m calling it out to be one of my best reads in my life with themes that are oh so relevant in today’s age and society.

It’s a struggle between the classes, power, control, obsessive love, passion, art.

Most of all, it’s what we think we can and can’t control.

Initially as I started reading it, I sighed. I’ve never been a fan of the serial killer crime genre and this book about an obsessed young loner of a man ( a butterfly collector) who abducts a beautiful woman so he could keep her for himself is creepy to say the least.

But it’s so much more.

My husband said that this was a book they had as part of their Year 11 English curriculum so no wonder. This isn’t just any crime or thriller novel. I’m sure there are students who have probably based their Masters or PhD studies on it.

I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.

We all want things we can’t have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.

It’s despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It’s despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It’s despair that so few of us care. It’s despair that there’s so much brutality and callousness in the world. It’s despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they’ve won a lot of money. And then do what you’ve done to me.

The ordinary man is the curse of civilisation.

You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you’re going to paint. The most terrible bad form.

I’ve still got a way to go in this book but already it’s making me toss and turn at night thinking about the themes.

When you see brilliant writing like this, it disturbs you. It makes you realise your own unworthy attempt at writing.

This book is telling us that if we don’t feel any passion or go out on a limb with our art, we are simply all collectors. We collect our little petty trivial things and activities we do in our life, throw money at them without taking any risks in revealing ourselves, our passions, emotions, feelings and vulnerabilities, nor take risks.

Yes, this book is for these times.