During lockdown, many people have had more time on their hands and some will have turned to their bookshelves to dig out books they have maybe not read for years – or perhaps not read at all.

Some will have turned to the classics, containing as they do the best writing and, it is said, being able to illuminate the human condition – that is, teaching us something about ourselves as human beings and influencing us by altering the way we look at the world.

I rang around some of my contacts to find out which books have made a real difference in their lives.

Retired English teacher John Dawson, of Kendal, chose Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger, which he first read at the age of 14.

“The book was giving a voice to teenage angst so it was a real breath of fresh air to me as a teenager,” said John.

“I must have read it three times in the first year. It is so colloquial and immediate and Holden Caulfield, who narrates the story, is an honest character but very vulnerable.”

Douglas Chalmers, chief executive of Friends of the Lake District, chose Farmer’s Boy by John R. Allan, a semi-autobiographical novel, about a boy growing up on a farm in Aberdeenshire before the First World War.

“I’d heard about this book, but couldn’t find it for years until there it was in a second hand book shop in Kirkby Lonsdale,” said Douglas.

What struck me, apart from there being horses in the book instead of tractors, was the way of life was one I could recognise from when I was the same age.

“So I realised that people, and their values, beliefs, hopes and fears, are the constants. Everything else going on around them, all the material stuff, is transient.”

Graham Bywater, director of Bywater and Tweedale architects, near Crooklands, chose Robert Harris’s book Munich, which weaves a fictional story set against the background of Neville Chamberlain’s visit to Hitler in 1938 to try to avert war.

“It’s not really high-brow literature as such but I am fascinated by certain periods of history and this book certainly gave me a great insight into that extremely uncertain period in the world,” said Graham.