poppy

I'm sure here are huge numbers of deserving novels written in the last decade that I haven't yet read but my favourites were: Peace Like a River - Leif Enger Flash House - Aimee Liu Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen Small Island - Andrea Levy

Hi Gil and a slightly belated welcome. You have my complete admiration for organising and going through three weddings. I'm sure you'll want to stay together after all that

Jaffas - they might be called something different elsewhere ....they are orange coated chocolate sweets. Traditionally eaten at the movies and rolled down the aisles. Once I start eating them I can't stop

Did the non-chick lit one but I do like the old romance writers - Jane Austin, Daphne du Maurier etc

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible - 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 1984 - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen- 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy- 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens- 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez- 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov- 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac- 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker- 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Inferno - Dante- 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - 80 Possession - AS Byatt - 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 34 with quite a few more I'm getting round to.

chicken noodle soup. Fortunately, the mayor was very partial to chicken noodle soup and he spent the next couple of hours happily occupied ......

Lol Muggles. I feel like someone has been videoing me:blush:

The first Science Fiction book I remember reading was A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It made a big impression on me and I want to read it again. I have never been into horror although I've read Dracula. I read a lot of fairy tales from around the world as a child, so I guess that was my introduction to fantasy.

drooling expectantly, knives and forks at the ready, bibs firmly tucked and plenty of tomato sauce at hand .......

Hi and welcome

Hi Genevieve and welcome. What a very pretty avatar you have

there was a shortage of dogs for quite some time as they had all been caught, battered and fried. All except one little .....

Hi Giulia and welcome

literally have something go through one ear and out the other. This of course caused quite unpleasant draughts but had the advantage of ....

red panic button. Froggie couldn't wait to use this as it was believed to make the most indescibable noise, capable of ....

That whole film was an epic fail - they all deserved to drown IMO. I absolutely loved all the accents in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, had a bit of trouble catching what Jimmy Nail (Oz) was saying at times his accent is so strong.

We leave Caesar to have his own little private nervous breakdown and get back to froggie who inadvertently .....

carry out his nefarious plans. However, on the way, he was diverted by a large and strangely attractive ....

I'm like you Lucy, I feel sick very quickly if I read in a car (while it's moving anyway ) but am fine in buses, planes,trains and boats.

"I Killed Spot Last Week," a work he found truly inspiring and one that had encouraged him to .....

Hi Batty and welcome ....I was just going to ask where the Old Maid came in. A bit incongruous with 3 children (not to mention a husband )

Hi Big Daddy and welcome What an interesting job to have but I imagine a very demanding and stressful one.

A lady gets pulled over for speeding ... Woman: Is there a problem, Officer? Officer: Ma'am, you were speeding . Woman: Oh, I see. Officer: Can I see your license please? Woman: I'd give it to you but I don't have one. Officer: Don't have one? Woman: Lost it, 4 years ago for drunk driving. Officer: I see... Can I see your vehicle registration papers please . Woman: I can't do that. Officer: Why not? Woman: I stole this car. Officer: Stole it? Woman: Yes, and I killed and hacked up the owner. Officer: You what? Woman: His body parts are in plastic bags in the trunk if you want to see. The Officer looks at the woman and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up. Within minutes 5 police cars circle the car. A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half drawn gun. Officer 2: Ma'am, could you step out of your vehicle please! The woman steps out of her vehicle. Woman: Is there a problem sir? Officer 2: One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner. Woman: Murdered the owner? Officer 2: Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car, please. The woman opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk. Officer 2: Is this your car, ma'am? Woman: Yes, here are the registration papers. The officer is quite stunned. Officer 2: One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving license. The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and hands it to the officer. The officer examines the license. He looks quite puzzled. Officer 2: Thank you ma'am, one of my officers told me you didn't have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked up the owner. Woman: Bet the liar told you I was speeding , too!!!!

Lol. Very wise man