tidypijin

I agree that books like many other things need to be loved and enjoyed - I grew up in a family of 6 where personal possessions of any type were few - if you spoilt it you didn't get something new. Maybe I'm anal but I respect all my possessions not just books and I can't bring myself to be less careful just because the book was cheap or it was a second hand copy or it belongs to someone else or it's a shared family item. Chacun a son gout!!

Oooh Debbie - you were right to whisper - I am reluctant to loan people books because they do things like that; I once leant over to someone on a train and stopped them dog-earring a library book. (I need to get out more!!) Bacon Rind? Hmm I think that book ended up in our local library - did you have eggs with that? I always use bookmarks, I've got a pair of safari animals that hang over the back spine. Occasionally I use airline tickets or freebies from bookstores.

Like Louise I usually have two or three on the go and pick up to suit the mood and how long I'm likely to be waiting around. Weight of books when in transit is an important consideration, at present I'm juggling a rucksack; two crutches; a plaster cast and an arm wound. I tend to keep any hardbacks for indoors and try to limit the thickness of paperbacks when on the move to around 300 pages tops.

:coffee: I've been a lover of crime, thriller and forensic books for years. I've ploughed my way through Patricia Cornwell Scarpetta collection and 15 books later it has to be said the earlier books are best - Elizabeth George's Inspector Linley set are growing - 14 at the last count - the books and the characterisations are lost on the BBC series. I found David Lindsey in the early 90's and his hero Stuart Houston is OK but many of his books are stand alone thrillers some in the police procedural genre. I moved onto Kathy Reichs, Tess Gerritsen and Mo Hayder having met some fellow genre lovers at another book site on the internet and a recent find has been Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks and most recently I've been dipping into Ian Rankin's Rebus. My love of the genre has developed from pinching my dad's crime thrillers as a teenager and as the years go by my tastes just get darker and more involved. I'm fascinated by the science behind the CSI type stuff and police or military procedural. I read a lot of psychology books as background to my job as human resources management trainer. If anyone wants some recommendations feel free to ask. I also have a fondness for WWII stories and WWI Poets like Wilfred Owen. This stems from 'O' & 'A' level studies which sadly have left me cold towards Dickens and with an irrational dislike of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" although I do like some of his other works. Who can resist revisiting childrens classics like Winnie the Pooh, The Chronicles of Narnia, Beatrix Potter and Enid Blyton boarding school series Malory Towers and St. Clare's? I'm open to recommendations from girlfriends and colleagues on many subjects; tend to shy away from the hype surrounding bestsellers for ages - I confess I've not read Harry Potter (although the first 5 books were bought for me for Xmas 2004); and can spend hours browsing in bookstores making choices on the strength of covers blurb or by reading a few pages and getting a feel for the writer's style and narrative flow.