Experts on the books that shaped them

Jason Burley, owner of Camden Lock Books

This well-known independent originally opened as a second-hand bookshop in 1984 in the eponymous Camden Lock Market before moving to Old Street Station in 2002

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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Fortunately, I lapped up this epic and rambling classic at an impressionable age. It showed me that the boundaries of a novel can stretch as far as the human imagination.

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

My parents had been Conservatives. At university I veered towards anarchism and dropped out, but Tressell's one-off work resonated with my social conscience and concerns.

Journey to the End of Night and Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

These two sublime novels marry superb controlled writing with dark labyrinthine inner and outer narrative, sustained through every nuanced page. They were an epiphany to me and I would love to be able to translate them from French myself, when I've retired from bookselling.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

For a first novel, the voice of this book is so powerful, it reassured me that waves of great new writers would continue to emerge.

Camden Lock Books, Old Street Station, 4 Saint Agnes Well, EC1Y 1BE; camdenlockbooks.com

Adam Douglas, senior rare books expert at Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington specialises in the selling and buying of the finest quality original first editions, and signed, rare and antiquarian books

Emma by Jane Austen

This is the first book that opened literature for me. The free indirect style, the wit and subtlety, the sheer vivacity captured me for life.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

A note-perfect parody of inane travel writing, gradually deepening into the most trenchant exploration of disgust in all literature.

Micrographia by Robert Hooke

One of Swift's inspirations, no doubt. A work with magnificent images brought fresh from the microscope lens, in which a domestic Galileo reveals the hidden secrets of Restoration London.

Ulysses by James Joyce

The best book published in the single best year in all of literature, ineptly produced by enthusiastic amateurs in exile. It is the epitome of the modern first edition as fragile, beautiful, impossibly desirable object.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Am I allowed two curmudgeons on such a short list? Disgracefully funny.

Peter Harrington, 100 Fulham Road, SW3 6HS; peterharrington.co.uk

Nicky Dunne, chairman of Heywood Hill

Described by The Daily Telegraph as ‘unique, magical and quietly influential’, Heywood Hill is a Mayfair institution that has been selling old, new and antiquarian books since 1936

Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

Updike called it 'a vast sweet sea' and he was, as usual, spot on. Everything about Proust, the writer and the man, is riveting and beguiling. It took me a year to read his oceanic novel but I think about it and him all the time. You can't help it. He gets under your skull. And Proust really is for everyone. The building next to our shop on Curzon Street was under renovation last year and one of the Irish builders became a pal. He regaled me with extracts from Proust, which he read in the original French. Boy, those Irish can read. Chapeau Paddy!

A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor

The other principal Paddy at Heywood Hill is the immortal Patrick Leigh Fermor, who wrote a number of legendary baroque tales masquerading as travel books. This is my favourite. Paddy loved our shop (and even lived above it for a few weeks) and set up an account here for his former lover, a Romanian princess, when she was marooned behind the Iron Curtain. It was our job to make sure that she didn't go short of good books. We have turned this idea into A Year in Books, a tailored monthly subscription for readers worldwide. At the moment we have subscribers in over 50 countries, so hopefully we are getting something right.

The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Good biographies should be banquets and this is an epic feast of a book about an American town planner. Sound interesting? I promise it will change your life. So much so that when the author visited our shop the other day I dropped to my knees with forehead to ground in obeisance. He is the world's greatest living biographer and this, his first book, is an unforgettable multi-layered masterpiece and portrait of a man, a city and a culture. One of the pleasures of working at Heywood Hill is meeting one's heroes and Mr Caro did not disappoint.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

At Heywood Hill one of our most distinguished former colleagues was Nancy Mitford. She worked in the shop for three years during World War 2 and officers would flock to the shop to chat with her. She was also busy refining her writing style and we like to think her time at Heywood Hill influenced this gloriously witty novel published soon after. We create libraries for all sorts of people on all sorts of subjects around the world and this is one of the few titles that I include in almost every project.

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

I read this book with its wild and brilliant conceit as a teenager and devoured every word the great man wrote. He was a customer and my predecessor had a hand in helping it into print. Long after the author died we were asked to sell his books, which we did with great pleasure. We like finding new homes for good books. On this occasion we asked Dominic West to dress up as Flashman and he swanked around Mayfair twirling his whiskers and sword and stopping traffic in the process.

Heywood Hill, 10 Curzon St, W1J 5HH; heywoodhill.com