Peahen

^^ Have saved that to youtube favourites to watch later :-) Thanks for sharing Brian

I agree very much with your review Inver. I believe that Sister was the better novel of the two. I was also relieved that it took a while to work out the culprit as opposed to having guessed it within the first few pages.

It took me a considerable time to get through Ulysses, and it was not by choice but by essential reading list. I do believe that you cannot read it without first reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is worth it when you get through it. Joyce makes a series of progressions through his work and that is evident through reading them in order. Even in so much as he attempts to make up his own language in most of his work and that starts basically with A Portrait, progresses in Ulysses and then goes completely over the top in Finnegans Wake.

I always loved The Journey Continues advertisements by TSB I despise all Go Compare advertisements even the ones that are attempting to revenge themselves upon the annoying Go Compare opera singer. If you recognise your advertisment annoys people, get rid of it, don't prolong the pain! I also hate all those accident claim advertisements and loan advertisements, with their small print on the bottom of the screen indicating that people will be paying back 1250 per cent interest at times.

Everything Must Go with Will Ferrell. Wasn't the best movie.

I miss Fringe so much since its finale I am on the lookout for a new series now

When the Night Wind Howls from Ruddigore (Gilbert & Sullivan)

I read Miranda Hart's Is It Just Me on a recent flight, it was a quick read. I did like the way she brought in the younger her asking all these questions that you do at the age of 16 and her sidestepping the issues as to how life turned out. I am a major Miranda Hart fan, but it is the first auto-biography have read in a long time. I think the last one was Peter Kaye's.

How to make a huge list really small :-) So far have read the following: Pre-1700 1001. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus 989. Oroonoko – Aphra Behn - Made to read at University. 1700s 983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift 964. Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne - Really forced to read this one (he is not born until Volume 3) 961. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett 1800s 942. Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth 940. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 937. Mansfield Park – Jane Austen 936. Emma – Jane Austen 933. Persuasion – Jane Austen 932. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen 931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 930. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott 918. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens 917. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens 913. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 904. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë 903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë 902. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë 901. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë 899. Shirley – Charlotte Brontë 897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne 895. The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne 893. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe 891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë 887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell 880. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 868. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll 867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky 863. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott 854. Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll 853. Middlemarch – George Eliot 849. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu 820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson 819. She – H. Rider Haggard 809. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde 808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy Weedon Grossmith 801. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman 800. The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross 799. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 794. Dracula – Bram Stoker 789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James 1900s 780. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 779. The Wings of the Dove – Henry James 776. The Ambassadors – Henry James 775. The Golden Bowl – Henry James 766. The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad 748. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell 742. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence 736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce 730. Tarr – Wyndham Lewis 723. Ulysses – James Joyce 716. Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf 704. Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville 699. The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald 698. Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf 676. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence 669. The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen 619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell 610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien 608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier 594. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien 593. Finnegans Wake – James Joyce 574. The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 564. Animal Farm – George Orwell 547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell 529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger 508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding 506. The Story of O – Pauline Réage 490. The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon 459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee 456. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee 451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller 450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark 437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess 435. The Collector – John Fowles 433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 411. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys 408. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote 390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick 369. Troubles – J.G. Farrell 367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou 357. The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow 320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice 312. The Shining – Stephen King 301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams 272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker 254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood 238. The Cider House Rules – John Irving 237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson 219. The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster 205. Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey 203. The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie 198. The Book of Evidence – John Banville 196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving 190. Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro 183. Possession – A.S. Byatt 165. Wild Swans – Jung Chang 147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt 134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh 129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres 125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami 109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood 93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy 90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho 89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham 86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver 85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters 2000s 54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith 52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho 49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel 43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen 33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides 28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami 24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters 19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon 11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd 3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith 2. Saturday – Ian McEwan 1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

I truly enjoyed IQ84. I bought it and then read the reviews in retrospect of purchasing it as part of a price deal and was disheartened by what I had read particularly those that said you needed to be a seasoned reader of Marukami prior to coming to these books. This was my first Marukami and I had debated buying other books first but then one night picked it up, read the first page and was sitting down before I knew it and within two weeks had the three read. Whilst it does stretch over three books, there was this sublime element of description within the most mundane of actions of the characters that truly convey a true genius and there is much of that in the trilogy. I tend to have a short attention span and I devoured those three books within a short time. Perhaps as they are my first of his, they remain my favourite.

It is one of my favourite books by Gaskell and was a very progressive work of its age as it raised questions such as the progression of industry and also the dissenting voices within established religion/church of the day. The central love story though is quite a bit reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice meets Jane Eyre, so you can see external influences at play and will enjoy it if you like either of those novels. The book is also a must for Dicken's fans was originally printed as a serialisation in his Household Words and thus was edited a great deal by him, so you also can detect the voice of the editor a great deal within the social history context of the novel.

Kafka on the Shore, I have just finished this one Athena and did enjoy it, though perhaps not as much as Wind Up Bird Chronicle or 1Q84. Frankie, I came across Marukami last year for first time with 1Q84 and since then have read the three books in that trilogy, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and am currently at the start of Norweigian Wood by him. Sputnik Sweetheart is one that I have heard a great deal about and want to read this year.

John Ajvide Lindqvist is one of my favourites. Particularly Let the Right One In and Harbour. I have yet to read his other books, but have Star in my checkout basket from Amazon.

I have a few favourites: Frankie and Johnnie (Pacino) Life is Wonderful Max and Mary Ghost World Saw - 1 through to 6 Silence of the Lambs/ Red Dragon/ Hannibal Rising Taken The Fifth Element

Come Dine with Me - tonight they are dressed in pyjamas for the dinner party

Hi Raven, Athena and Frankie and thank you for the welcomes. I am enjoying Norweigian Wood, Raven, but yes it is very different from his other work and it has taken me a while to switch to that :-) The main character I am finding quite different to his other central male protagonists.

Especially after the Ellory revelations around him giving positive reviews of his own books and marking down other books, I have steered away from Amazon's rating system. I still read the occasional review but that is usually after I have purchased the book and read it, just to see what others thought of it. I used to use the forums on Amazon and the amount of people that were on there promoting their own work in proportion to readers and shoppers made it that I doubted the genuineness of most of the reviews.

Iron Man 3 at the moment is the one am looking forward to most. Love RDJ in that role. Looking forward also to Star Trek 2. The Collection, which is heralded as being the new Saw series. The ABCs of Death The Lone Ranger

The last horror movie I seen was Hostel Part 3. While some said there was gore in it just for the sake of it, I think they must have been watching a different movie to me as it was not that gory and it was not really that scary. I think the first one remains the best in that series. I am a huge horror movie fan, though I prefer the slash and gore types, as I tend to search for one that divorces from the formula.

Jane Eyre - by Charlotte Bronte. The first time I wanted to ration a book so that it would not end. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Recently rediscovered. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The symbolism within each sentence.

Each year, I try and put a ridiculous goal on how many books I should read in a 365 day period. This year, so far I have read: The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith Gillespie and I by Joanne Harris Kafka on The Shore by Haruki Murakami Out of the above, I have been enjoying Murakami the most. I had been meaning to read Gorky Park for a long time and was a little let down by it. I have a huge interest in Russian history but after reading Child 44, The Secret Speech and Agent 6 last year, by Tim Rob Smith, I found it a bit lacking. Gillespie and I on the other hand, it was very well written, the narrator quite a sinister character, but the 'shocking event', I found that there was some discrepencies then in the narrative and a bit of an anti climax.

I have read New York, and enjoyed it so much have also bought Sarum and London. I do love his way of telling a story through generations.

Hi Chesilbeach, thanks for the welcome - one of my favourite books Risingdawn - i tend to have to write about the most random things - my last few articles have been on finance, property law and science (maths and science being my weakest topics, so a lot of research goes into that).

Hi Risingdawn I used to be a journalist, and then went on to be a researcher. I have been using the journalism experience then lately and been freelancing as a writer, often for companies and websites :-) Thank you for your congratulations.

This is a fantastic review and very much true. I had feared the hype also and ever since reading IQ84, I have been reading him exclusively. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle has been my favourite to date and it is the wealth of the strands that are in the novel.