Madeleine

The Hunger Games trilogy - Suzanne Collins (sorry if that's a bit of a cheat...)

When a man loves a woman - Percy Sledge

And they didn't have the big budget at the beginning either! Those baby dragons looked like they were flying along on strings, it was only after it took off that they started to get the mega budgets.

I can thoroughly recommend the Shetland novels (I've probably said that before!), welcome back Ian.

Walk like an Egyptian - Bangles

Maybe they didn't want him to look too horrific, plus the time taken to put on the prosthetic makeup needed, and keep it in place for continuity etc, would have been impractical, so maybe that was why they changed him from the book, could have done the different coloured eyes easily enough though with contact lenses! Jorah Mormont is also quite different, physically, in the books, but some of the other actors were pretty much spot on.

Walking in Memphis - Cher/Marc Cohn

(You are on my wavelength, be concerned!)* Be afraid, be very afraid...... or maybe great minds think alike? You make some interesting points, fascinating to see how people visualise things in different ways. Small point - I thought they got the Game of Thrones casting pretty spot on, and I agree with LoTR too, great casting (except maybe Liv Tyler as Arwen, who hardly appears in the books compared to the films), a shame another version is being made but t then it is now 20 years since the first film came out

Inside - Stiltskin

Sometimes I do imagine a certain actor fitting the description of a character in the book, for example I only saw Nicole Kidman as Ada in Cold Mountain, maybe it was written with her in mind? I never pictured Jude Law as Inman though. Other times I do the same as Lau Lou, ie a sort of blurry image without definite features, except for maybe hair colour, I think I have a sort of generic idea of what a character would look like and then project that onto the written description. I think once some books are filmed the authors do sometimes alter the characters in subsequent books to match the actor/s more, I think this happened with the later Inspector Morse books for example, and once I have a physical image of an actor then it's hard to shake that when I read a book featuring their character. Poldark was a difficult one - sometimes I can see Aiden Turner in the book, other times it's Robin Ellis, even though I've only seen a handful of the original episodes.

The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Numbers Game - Danielle Steel

The Christmas Collection by Victoria Connelly - this is a set of 3 novellas, or longish short stories (about 60 pages each) set, naturally, at Christmas time and all are set in beautiful parts of the UK. In the first, Christmas at the Cove, Millie wants to spend the season on her own, and is thrilled when her aunt says that she can have her cottage in Devon, where she spent many happy holidays. But when she gets there, she finds a man already in residence - widowed doctor Niall has also been loaned the cottage by Milie's aunt (he's her GP) and planned to spend Christmas there with his young son. And when there's a heavy snowfall, both parties are forced to get along together. In Christmas at the Castle, the MacNeice family arrive at a remote castle in the Scottish Highlands - divorced dad Ian with his two daughters; his eight year old is sweet, but his older teenager would rather spend the season anywhere but in a freezing castle in the middle of nowhere with no mobile phone signal, like in California with her mother. the owner is a widow with a teenage daughter and young son of her won, and luckily the older girls bond, sort of. But it still could be an awkward Christmas for both families. In Christmas at the Cottage, Rowan also flees to her family's old cottage in the Lake District, following a messy break up with a work colleague. But her sister and her husband had also planned to spend the season at the cottage, on their own. Then Rowan's brother-in-law's best friend also turns up, so from having a solo Christmas she now finds herself with a housefull, and Nick is the last person she wants to see, following an embarrassing encounter at her sister's wedding. This wsa a quick, cosy read, and finished off the season nicely. 7/10

Days without Number - Robert Goddard

So the Doc is off! although she's done 3 series it doesn't seem like she's been in the role for long, I think the last series was shorter or split, and the 3rd series is on the way but I think will also be shorter than the usual 10 or so eps.