Michael Manning is the eighth Manx Bard. He left school at 15 with no qualifications and has spent most of his adult life with people who are homeless or in insecure accommodation in the island, primarily through the work of the late charity Graih. He is currently a bank healthcare assistant at Noble’s. He is the author of No King but God and is good at washing up. The ninth Manx Bard will be unveiled on Sunday.
1. The World Turned Upside Down by Dick Gaughan
The tradition of protest in folk song has inspired and influenced me. This is a raging lament for the attempt at justice by the Diggers in the 17th century: a radical group of reformers seeking to throw off the shackles of oppression.
2. Possession by A.S. Byatt
A beautiful and astonishing novel moving between the present day and the 19th century. It is both a moving romance and a powerful meditation on the themes of possession and identity.
3. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
It’s a terrifying and searing account of a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It’s spare, bleak and unforgettable, raising all sorts of questions about faith, values and survival.
4. Middlemarch by George Eliot
The epitome of what a novel can do. A tender and vast portrayal of intersecting lives in a 19th century town, full of psychological depth and compelling drama.
5. The Holy Bible
Indescribable. An immense and intimate treasure-house lying at the root of much of Western culture. It contains everything from honest wrestling with the pain of reality to bright visions of utopian justice and peace. It is for me a fount for life and faith, a consolation, an inspiration for a better world and a witness to humanity’s attempts to reckon with the divine love at the heart of creation.
6. The Promise by Bruce Springsteen
A song full of beauty, dreams and melancholy, with some of Springsteen’s best lines: ‘When the truth is spoken and it don’t make no difference, something in your heart runs cold.’
7. God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hopkins was never published as a poet in his own lifetime and is now seen as an extraordinary innovator and linguistic genius. This is an exquisite poem full of beauty and hope.
8. Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk
An angry and brilliant account of Fisk’s time in Palestine and Lebanon as a journalist in the 1980s. It is a damning critique of violence, injustice and poverty.
9. Tumbling Ground by The Black Peppercorns
My adolescence was marked by ill health and addiction. The Black Peppercorns made music that was honest in its recognition of pain and consoled me through difficult times. This title song from their album is one of my favourites.
10. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Pratchett’s Discworld series is a delight to read and this is one of his best. Like all the best satirists, he brings to his writing a sharp moral judgement and witty observation.