Bel-ami

Thanks Vanwa, I hadn't thought of those perspectives and you're right I hadn't picked up on any sarcasm as I recall. I shall line it up for a re-read

Please don't let me put you off - I'm probably just a wimp:roll: It was a long time ago that I read it and maybe I was just plain scared. It was possibly the juxtaposition of the 'real world' with a dark fantasy world that got to me though. Same with The Owl Service perhaps, now I come to think of it. Go on, read it - I look forward to hearing your verdict!

I read The Hobbit at the age of 10 and LOTR at 11, (nowhere near as precocious as Mac), that was a long time ago and I've never re-visited them, but would list them as among my all-time favourite books. I wonder if I'd enjoy them as much decades later? ...and I can't even remember Tom Bombadil

I remember being unable to finish The Owl Service by Alan Garner when I was a child. I can't remember now if I was scared or disturbed though. What I do know, is that I have since been disturbed by Weaveworld by Clive Barker.

Me too, I find it hard to part with them. On that note, I still have many of my books from childhood and was recently recently shocked to see how much a George Newnes edition of "William The Lawless" by Richmal Crompton can fetch. I may part with that one

Could "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank be listed under Netherlands and not Germany? Born in Germany admittedly, but moved to Amsterdam when she was only three or four. For Sweden, I would add Kerstin Ekman's Blackwater or Under the Snow......mysteries set in the bleak north.

Re: Weaveworld - yes, its inclusion says more about my tastes than the book itself, so perhaps not fair that one. I should have thought it through better - if you like horror/fantasy, then Clive Barker is to be recommended I'm sure

Of course, there are also a few Alistair MacLean titles, maybe not so much about spies, but nevertheless a few twists and turns: The Guns of Navarone, Force 10 from Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, HMS Ulysses - all high octane stuff.

I've been enjoying reading through this thread and like others have gasped when someone wrote that they didn't like some personal favourites like War of the Worlds, Madame Bovary or Stendahl's Scarlet & Black. I would include Lord of the Rings in that, but Freewheeling Andy's comment made me think about whether I would still like it now as an adult. I read it when I was eleven and was totally captivated by it. I wonder whether it would have the same effect if I read it now - probably not. So, my turn to upset someone perhaps. The books I wouldn't recommend: The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Weaveworld by Clive Barker The Influencing Engine by Richard Hayden Reasons? apart from boredom, I think the first three were partly because I don't like being preached at or having an author's philosophical or moral preconceptions forced upon me. Weaveworld proved to me that fantasy horror wasn't my cup of tea and the last one was simply the dullest, most pointless, badly written book I have ever waded through (sorry Mr Hayden).

Perhaps you could try Enigma by Robert Harris? or The White Rabbit by Bruce Marshall (non-fiction)

I'll second that.

I really like the Falco books as well. Although I have by no means read them all, my favourite has also been The Silver Pigs, I enjoyed the darker mood too. I had never been to an author's 'event' until recently when Lindsey Davis was appearing locally. She is funny and down-to-earth and it was a very interesting evening learning about her background and inspiration. She devoted a fair bit of time to her new venture, Rebels and Traitors, a novel of the English Civil War, which seems to have been a lifelong ambition of hers, which the success of the Falco series has now enabled her to achieve. Looking foward to Rebels and Traitors which launches, I think, in the UK on 3rd September.

This has long puzzled me as well. I like your explanation BookJumper I always assumed that the suppression of characters' names in fiction was to give some credance to them - as though the author was protecting their identity (for political/social reasons as BookJumper refers to).

Welcome Flashman! I am a fellow fan of these books which I was inspired to read after watching the BBC series Tom Brown's Schooldays back in the early 1970s, starring Richard Morant as Flashman. Like Bel-ami, Flashman was a 'cad and a bounder'; the bully who made life miserable for Tom Brown at Rugby School. Author George MacDonald Fraser takes the Flashman story beyond Tom Brown's Schooldays written by Thomas Hughes) and into an illustrious career in the British army in the Victorian era. Lots of adventure, scandal and romping. Great escapist fun.

Almost the same, mine was The Fog by James Herbert, or was it The Rats First SciFi: War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells First Fantasy: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Does anyone recall a film starring George Segal and Glenda Jackson in which George undergoes some sort of mid-life crisis and barricades himself in a room vowing not to come out until he's read War and Peace? Was it called 'Lost and Found'? Doing that has always rather appealed to me

CJ Sansom is interviewed about Dissolution on BBC Radio 4's Bookclub programme which is still available to listen on iPlayer

I haven't read this one, but would recommend "Fathers and Sons" which (as I remember it) is an interesting tale and explores a number of issues such as friendship and the divide between generations, against a backdrop of provincial Russian society undergoing a period of change. Serious literary students will probably put me right here......and expand on all the underlying themes.

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

A personal top five: Just William - Richmal Crompton Coot Club - Arthur Ransome Watership Down - Richard Adams The House at Pooh Corner - A. A. Milne The Otterbury Incident - C. Day Lewis

I think Richmal Crompton is the name you are after. Some of my early favourites were: Rupert annuals Winnie The Pooh & The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne Secret Seven series & Mr Twiddle books, E. Blyton Just William series, Richmal Crompton Worzel Gummidge books, Barbara Euphan Todd The Adventures of Paddington, Michael Bond Swiss Family Robinson, J.R. Weiss The Otterbury Incident, C. Day Lewis with wonderful sketches by Edward Ardizzone Later on I enjoyed: The Viking Trilogy, Henry Treece The Marsh King & The Namesake by C. Walter Hodges Coot Club, Arthur Ransome Watership Down, R. Adams

I had a queer childhood and a not altogether happy one. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon

Looks like I must read To Kill a Mockingbird. My top 5 are: Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien Pilllars of the Earth - Ken Follett Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Bel-ami - Guy de Maupassant Watership Down - Richard Adams

My son has read all the Cherub series and the first of the Henderson Boys books which he thought was as good as, if not better than Cherub. I've read a few of the Cherubs as I was concerned that perhaps they were too 'adult' for his age. I thought they were exciting and very readable. MI6 meets Grange Hill.