MELVYN Bragg, the author and presenter of the South Bank Show, unveiled his "12 books that changed the world" in Glasgow last night, at the launch of The Herald Glenmorangie Book Series 2006. According to the writer, the game of football is as important to our history as Christianity, evolution or the discovery of electricity.

His list of British writers includes The First Rule Book of The Football Association and works such as the King James Bible, Origin Of The Species, and Newton's Principia Mathematica. Literary cornerstones like the Magna Carta and Adam's Smith's The Wealth of Nations were joined by such controversial works as Married Love by Marie Stopes.

On Stopes, Lord Bragg said: "After the book was published she was fined GBP12,000 by a judge who called it 'copulation without consequences'. She went on to receive tens of thousands of letters from people around the world who wanted more information about contraception."

Lord Bragg's list forms the basis for a new book, "12 Books That Changed the World" which he hopes will demonstrate that the lives we lead today have been formed, as often as not, by a single book.

The 12 books are: Darwin:

Origin Of The Species (1859);

The First Rule Book of The Football Association (1863);

William Shakespeare's First Folio (1623); Newton: Principia Mathematica (1687);

Adam Smith: The Wealth Of Nations (1776); William Wilberforce: Speech to The House Of Commons (12th May 1789); The King James Bible (1611); Patent Specification For Arkwright's Spinning Machine (1769); Mary Wollstonecraft: AVindication Of The Rights Of Women (1792); Michael Farraday:

Experimental Research In Electricity (1855); Marie Stopes: Married Love (1918);

Magna Carta (1215) .