poppyshake

I've really enjoyed all the de Bernieres' books I've read so far but haven't read nearly enough of them yet. I love the sound of this one .. great review Ian

I most certainly will .. in fact I've already been over there and kicked my shoes off and whatnot Glad you're enjoying your reading again Chrissy-poo

I've always fancied reading that particular Mitford at Christmas and I enjoyed the extract from it that was included in Round the Christmas Fire .. perhaps I'll manage it next year I like the sound of Forever X too I had better not adopt your system of rating books according to how much they stick with you .. all mine would get 1 Even those I've really enjoyed I have to hammer home by frequent re-readings Great Christmas books .. hope you enjoy reading them Willoyd

My Favourite Books (list can also be used as a 'best avoided' ) Progress 133/133 (Go me! ) Fiction Ben Aaronovitch - Rivers of London series Joe Abercrombie - The First Law Trilogy Edward Albee - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Clare Allen - Poppy Shakespeare (yes ... that's how it all began ) Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey Jane Austen - Persuasion Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility Julian Barnes - Arthur & George David Benioff - City of Thieves Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell John Connolly - The Book of Lost Things Patrick deWitt - The Sisters Brothers Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens - Bleak House Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment Mark Dunn - Ella Minnow Pea Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex Jasper Fforde - The Thursday Next series Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere Paul Gallico - Mrs Harris Goes to Paris George & Weedon Grossmith - Diary of a Nobody Joseph Heller - Catch 22 Emma Henderson - Grace Williams Says it Loud John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go Eowyn Ivey - The Snow Child Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle Mette Jakobsen - The Vanishing Act Thomas Keneally - Schindler's Ark Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible Andrey Kurkov - Death and the Penguin Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird Lauren Liebenberg - The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter & Jam Karen Maitland - Company of Liars Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude Daphne du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca Cormac McCarthy - The Road Herman Melville - Moby Dick Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind Nancy Mitford - The Pursuit of Love Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus Toni Morrison - Beloved Iris Murdoch - The Sea, The Sea Paul Murray - Skippy Dies Irene Nemirovsky - Suite Francaise Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar Annie Proulx - The Shipping News Dan Rhodes - Gold Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Willy Russell - The Wrong Boy F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby Maria Semple - Where'd You Go Bernadette Mary Ann Shaffer - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Lynn Shepherd - Tom All-Alones Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle Kathryn Stockett - The Help Bram Stoker - Dracula Mari Strachan - The Earth Hums in B Flat Donna Tartt - The Secret History Voltaire - Candide Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse Markus Zusak - The Book Thief Young Adult Richard Adams - Watership Down Joan Aiken - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of being a Wallflower Eoin Colfer - The Artemis Fowl series Roald Dahl - Matilda Cornelia Funke - Inkheart Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book Sally Gardner - I Coriander Kenneth Grahame - Wind in the Willows Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time C.S. Lewis - The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe A.A. Milne - Winnie the Pooh Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls Mary Norton - The Borrowers Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith Chris Priestley - Tales of Terror series J.K. Rowling - The Harry Potter series Jonathan Stroud - The Bartimaeus Trilogy J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ P.L. Travers - Mary Poppins Catherynne M.Valente - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making Non-fiction Andrea Ashworth - Once in a House on Fire Clare Balding - My Animals and Other Family John Bayley - The Iris Trilogy William Blacker - Along the Enchanted Way James Bowen - A Streetcat Named Bob Bill Bryson - Notes from a Big Country Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson - The Lost Continent Augusten Burroughs - Running with Scissors Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl Stephen Fry - Moab is My Washpot Stephen Fry - The Fry Chronicles Angelica Garnett - Deceived with Kindness Susan Hill - Howards End is on the Landing Nick Hornby - The Complete Polysyllabic Spree William Horwood - The Boy With No Shoes Brian Keenan - An Evil Cradling Richard Kennedy - A Boy at the Hogarth Press Hermione Lee - Virginia Woolf Laurie Lee - Cider with Rosie Mary S. Lovell - The Mitford Girls Alexander Masters - Stuart: A Life Backwards Sarah Miles - Right Royal B*stard David Mitchell - Back Story Caitlin Moran - How To Be A Woman Charlotte Mosley - Letters Between Six Sisters (Mitford's) Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith - Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith - Van Gogh: The Life George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London Sylvia Plath - The Journals of Sylvia Plath Lorna Sage - Bad Blood Oscar Wilde - De Profundis Jeanette Winterson - Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? Elie Wiesel - Night Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf - Selected Diaries Virginia Woolf - Selected Letters

The Most Famous Book Set in Every (American) State Challenge Progress 10/51 (map) AL: To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee AK: Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer AZ: The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver AR: A Painted House - John Grisham CA: East of Eden - John Steinbeck CO: The Shining - Stephen King CT: Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates DE: The Saint of Lost Things - Christopher Castellani FL: To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway GA: Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell HI: Hawaii - James Michener ID: Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson IL: The Jungle - Upton Sinclair IN: The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington IA: A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley KS: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank Baum (of course ) KY: Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe LA: Interview with a Vampire - Anne Rice ME: Carrie - Stephen King MD: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler MA: Walden - Henry David Thoreau MI: The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides MN: Main Street - Sinclair Lewis MS: The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner (aaarrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! ) MO: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain MT: A River Runs Through It - Norman Maclean NE: My Antonia - Willa Cather NV: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson NH: The Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving NJ: Drown - Junot Diaz NM: Red Sky at Morning - Richard Bradford NY: The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald NC: A Walk to Remember - Nicholas Sparks ND: The Round House - Louise Eldrich OH: The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace OK: Paradise - Toni Morrison OR: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey PA: The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold RI: My Sisters Keeper - Jodi Picoult SC: The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd SD: A Long Way From Home - Tom Brokaw TN: The Firm and The Client - John Grisham TX: No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy UT: The 19th Wife - David Ebershoff VT: Pollyanna - Eleanor H. Porter VA: Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson WA: Twilight - Stephenie Meyer DC: The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown WV: Shiloh - Phillis Reynolds Naylor WI: Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder WY: The Laramie Project - Moises Kaufman

Poppyshake's English Counties Challenge (the most famous books associated with each English county) For more info visit the English Counties Challenge forum Progress 27/48 (but some of those read will be re-read) Bedfordshire: My Uncle Silas by H. E. Bates Berkshire: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Bristol: The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young Buckinghamshire: The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper Cambridgeshire: The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers Cheshire: Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell City of London: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Cornwall: Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier (on shelf) Cumbria: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome Derbyshire: Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks Devon: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle Dorset: Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy County Durham: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens East Riding of Yorkshire: South Riding by Winifred Holtby East Sussex: Winnie-The-Pooh by A. A. Milne Essex: The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James Gloucestershire: Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee Greater London: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Greater Manchester: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell Hampshire: Watership Down by Richard Adams Herefordshire: On The Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin Hertfordshire: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Isle of Wight: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Kent: The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates Lancashire: Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Leicestershire: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend Lincolnshire: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot Merseyside: An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge Norfolk: The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley North Yorkshire: Dracula by Bram Stoker Northamptonshire: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Northumberland: The Stars Look Down by A. J. Cronin Nottinghamshire: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence Oxfordshire: The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford Rutland: Set In Stone by Robert Goddard Shropshire: Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse Somerset: Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore South Yorkshire: A Kestral For A Knave by Barry Hines Staffordshire: The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett Suffolk: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald Surrey: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells Tyne and Wear: Another World by Pat Barker Warwickshire: Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes West Midlands: Middlemarch by George Eliot West Sussex: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons West Yorkshire: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Wiltshire: Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope Worcestershire: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Poached Quotes on Toasts Toast Quotes 2012 Toast Quotes 2013 Most of these have been taken from books as I've read them ... though I did add my faves to begin with but .. all in all .. I've accumulated about 84. Not sure what I'm going to do with them but it keeps me out of mischief and stops me playing on train tracks etc. If you happen upon a toast quote I'd be very grateful if you could point me in its general direction I'll add a few down here .. just to get us warmed up (or nice and toasty .. as I call it ) The weirdest: A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess: So up I went to the tenth floor, and there I saw 10-8 as it had been before, and my rooker trembled and shook as I took out of my carman the little klootch I had for opening up. But I very firmly fitted the klootch in the lock and turned, then opened up then went in, and there I met three pairs of surprised and almost frightened glazzies looking at me, and it was pee and em having their breakfast, but it was also another veck that I had never viddied in my jeezny before, a bolshy thick veck in his shirt and braces, quite at home, brothers, slurping away at the milky chai and munchmunching at his eggiweg and toast One of the funniest: The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell: Then she whispered in my ear again and she said, 'Have you ever made love ... with Chris de Burgh ... in the background?' And I thought that was the most spectacularly disgusting thing of all! I said, 'I wouldn't even make toast with Chris de Burgh in the background!' The most philosophical: Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith: Steam rises off teacups. We've got the taste of buttered toast in our mouths. At least, I assume we all have it, since we've all been eating the same toast. Then I start to worry. Because what if we all taste things differently? What if each bit of toast tastes completely different? After all, the two bits I've eaten tasted a bit different even from each other. The most disgusting: Down and out in Paris and London - George Orwell: A customer orders, for example, a piece of toast. Somebody, pressed with work in a cellar deep underground, has to prepare it. How can he stop and say to himself. 'This toast is to be eaten - I must make it eatable'? All he knows is that it must look right and must be ready in three minutes. Some large drops of sweat fall from his forehead onto the toast. Why should he worry? Presently the toast falls among the filthy sawdust on the floor. Why trouble to make a new piece? It is much quicker to wipe the sawdust off. On the way upstairs the toast falls again, butter side down. Another wipe is all it needs The most comforting: Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh: There was a silver tea-pot, and a silver kettle with a little spirit-lamp underneath, and a silver cream jug and a covered silver dish full of muffins. There was also hot buttered toast and honey and gentleman's relish and a chocolate cake, a cherry cake, a seed cake and a fruit cake and some tomato sandwiches and pepper and salt and currant bread and butter. Sisters By a River - Barbara Comyns: When he was at last ready, with his silver flask filled with brandy in case he was overcome by the journey, we all had to flock to the door to see him off, and until the carrage had disapeared from sight we had to say Good Luck, Good Luck and then go on saying more Good Lucks. Once I wouldn't say good Luck at all, just went on eating my toast and marmalaid, the grown-ups Granny in particular were horrorfied and I was smacked and locked in the bootroom, usually when I was locked up there I used to eat the galoches, but this time it was too soon after breakfast so I cried until I was sick, they had to let me out after that. (I know how easy it is to be distracted by toast ... though have never been locked in a bootroom for it .. I've never lived anywhere that had a bootroom and I'm rather glad of it. Can't see the appeal in snacking on 'galoches' .. things would have to be desperate for me to consider it as an option ) On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin: Dr Bulmer came and diagnosed pneumonia. For two weeks Mary hardly left the bedside. She ladled liquorice and elderberry down his throat and, at the least sign of a rally, she fed him spoonfuls of egg-custard and slips of buttered toast. He would cry out, 'When am I going to die, Mama?' 'I'll tell you when,' she'd say. 'And it'll be a long while yet.' (Exactly what I'd do to keep someone in the land of the living .. though very much on a 'one for me .. one for you' basis =D) Mr Pye - Mervyn Peake: 'Pull for the shore sailor! Pull for the shore! Heed not the roll ... ing waves but bend to the oar! Safe in the lifeboat, sailor ... Tumpty-tumpty taw, Tiddly-widdly-pidly, sailor! Pull .. for .. the .. shore! Pull on your clothes! Let's have some breakfast, sailor! Porridge and loaves, safe in the kitchen, sailor! There'll be toast galore!' (This was a bit of an impromptu song made up by Mr Pye and his landlady Miss Dredger .. I can't say I thought much of it until the last line .. it ended rather triumphantly =D) The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt: 'The plate of food, when he set it before me, was nothing to look at - puffy, yellow stuff on toast. But it smelled good. Cautiously, I tasted it. It was melted cheese, with chopped-up tomato and cayenne pepper and some other things I couldn't figure out, and it was delicious.' (Proof positive that toast can make anything taste good .. even puffy, yellow stuff.) The Darling Buds of May - H.E. Bates: Mariette was eating toast and golden marmalade. As she opened her mouth to eat he saw, for the first time, how beautifully white her teeth were and how pink, in a pure rose-petal shade, her tongue now appeared as it darted out and caught at golden shreds of marmalade. (It's obviously early days in their relationship!)

Books bought/acquired 2014 Progress 26/37 Fiction: Aaronovitch, Ben - Broken Homes (Borrowed from lovely Claire) Ambjørnsen, Ingvar - Beyond the Great Indoors (from lovely frankie ) Attenburg, Jami - The Middlesteins (from lovely Claire ) Bates, H.E. - The Darling Buds of May Bates, H.E. - My Uncle Silas Bradley, Alan - A Red Herring Without Mustard Bradley, Alan - The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag Bulawayo, NoViolet - We Need New Names Byers, Sam - Idiopathy Carroll, Emma - Frost Hollow Hall (Borrowed from lovely Claire) Chatwin, Bruce - On the Black Hill Collis, John Stewart - The Worm Forgives the Plough (from lovely Kylie ) Connell, Evan S. - Mrs Bridge Fagan, Jenni - The Panopticon (from lovely Claire ) Filer, Nathan - The Shock of the Fall Gaiman, Neil - The Ocean at the End of the Lane Grimwood, Ken - Replay (from lovely chaliepud ) Hagena, Katharina - The Taste of Apple Seeds (borrowed from lovely Claire) Hewitt, Jason - The Dynamite Room Hines, Barry - A Kestrel for a Knave Jääskeläinen, Pasi Ilmari - The Rabbit Back Literature Society Jonasson, Jonas - The Girl who Saved the King of Sweden Joyce, Rachel - Perfect Meyler, Deborah - The Bookstore (Borrowed from lovely Claire) Nemirovsky, Irene - The Misunderstanding Ness, Patrick - The Crane Wife North, Claire - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Riggs, Ransom - Hollow City Solomons, Natasha - The Gallery of Vanished Husbands Tey, Josephine - The Franchise Affair (from lovely Claire ) Townsend, Sue - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Non-Fiction: Crystal, Ben - Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard Fowler, Christopher - Paperboy Gaskell, Elizabeth - The Life of Charlotte Bronte Kilvert, Francis - Kilvert's Diary (edited by William Plomer) Marx, Groucho - The Groucho Letters (from lovely Kylie ) Thorn, Tracey - Bedsit Disco Queen

Book Club Forum Member's Favourite Non-Fiction Kylie's Favourite Non-Fiction (progress 3/13) Bill Bryson - Down Under Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything Truman Capote - In Cold Blood AB Facey - A Fortunate Life Tim Flannery - The Explorers Tim Flannery - The Birth of Sydney Anne Frank - The Diary of Anne Frank Helene Hanff - 84 Charing Cross Road Steven D. Levitt - Freaconomics Sylvia Plath - The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath Andrew Solomon - The Noonday Demon Martin Toseland - A Steroid Hit the Earth Frankie's Favourite Non-Fiction (progress 3/28) Sylvia Beach - Shakespeare and Company Constance Briscoe - Ugly Vincent Bugliosi - Helter Skelter Augusten Burroughs - A Wolf at the Table Augusten Burroughs - Dry Augusten Burroughs - Magical Thinking Augusten Burroughs - Possible Side Effects Augusten Burroughs - Running with Scissors Alain de Botton - How Proust Can Change Your Life Peggy Claude-Pierre - The Secret Language of Eating Disorders Pamela Druckerson - French Children Don't Throw Food Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl Philip Gonzalez - The Dog Who Rescues Cats John Grogan - Marley and Me Ronald Hayman - The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath Nick Hornby - The Complete Polysyllabic Spree Lesley McDowell - Between the Sheets - The Literary Liaisons of Nine 20th Century Women Writers Motley Crue - The Dirt Vicki Myron - Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World Christopher V.V. Parnell - Hell's Prisoner Dave Peltzer - A Child Called It Flora Rheta Scheiber - Sybil Mary Roach - Stiff - The Life of the Human Cadavers Ann Rule - The Stranger Beside Me Deborah Spungen - And I Don't Want to Live This Life: A Mother's Story of her Daughter's Murder Danny Wallace - Yes Man Tobias Wolff - This Boys Life Tuula-Liina Varis - Kilpikonna ja olkimarsalkka

Book Club Forum Member's Favourite Fiction Reads Kylie's Favourite Fiction (progress 23/40) Jane Austen - Emma Jane Austen - Pride & Prejudice John Banville - The Body of Evidence Ray Bradbury - Farenheit 451 Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange Italo Calvino - If On a Winter's Night a Traveller John Connolly - The Book of Lost Things Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Alexandre Dumas - Count of Monte Christo Mark Dunn - Ella Minnow Pea Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex Michel Faber - The Crimson Petal and the White F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated George & Weedon Grossmith - Diary of a Nobody Joseph Heller - Catch 22 Susan Hill - The Woman in Black Jack Kerouac - On the Road Jack Kerouac - The Town and the City Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon Steig Larsson - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird Erich Maria Marquez - All Quiet on the Western Front Margaret Mitchell - Gone With the Wind Vladimir Nabakov - Lolita George Orwell - Animal Farm Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged Mary Shelley - Frankenstein John Steinbeck - Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men Bram Stoker - Dracula Hunter.S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray Tim Winton - Cloudstreet Markus Zusak - The Book Thief Frankie's Favourite Fiction (progress 32/103) Boris Akunin - The Winter Queen Ingvar Ambjørnsen - Elling series Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey Jane Austen - Persuasion Iain Banks - Wasp Factory Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home Robert Bloch - Psycho John Boyne - Crippen John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Poppy Z. Brite - Exquisite Corpse Karin Brunk Holmqvist - Pieni potenssipuoti Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange Chelsea Cain - Heartsick Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower Agatha Christie - Ten little Niggers Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Jeffery Deaver - Lincoln Rhyme series Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities Lucy Dillon - The Secret of Happy Ever After Emma Donoghue - Room Daphne du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex Michel Faber - Under the Skin Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones's Diary Fannie Flagg - Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Peter Franzén - Tumman veden päällä Stephen Fry - The Hippopotamus Alex Garland - The Beach Guy Gavriel Kay - The Lions of Al-Rassan Linda Gillard - Emotional Geology William Goldman - The Marathon Man John Grogan - Marley and Me Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Matt Haig - The Last Family in England Anna-Leena Härkönen - Häräntappoase Daniil Harms - Incidences Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse series Joanne Harris - Gentleman & Players Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises Nick Hornby - Juliet, Naked Siri Hustvedt - The Summer Without Men Kazuo Ishiguro - A Pale View of Hills Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip Katja Kallio - Kuutamolla John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon Stephen King - Cujo Stephen King - Green Mile Stephen King - The Stand Sophie Kinsella - Twenties Girl Andrey Kurkov - Death & the Penguin Tuomas Kyrö - Mielensäpahoittaja Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird Dennis Lehane - Shutter Island Ira Levin - Rosemary's Baby Jeff Lindsay - Dexter Vaino Linna - The Unknown Soldier Jennifer Lynch - The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (and you need to watch the TV show!!) Vladimar Nabokov - Lolita Irene Nemirovsky - The Ball Grace Metalious - Peyton Place David Mitchell - Black Swan Green Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind Sue Monk Kidd - The Secret of Bees L.M. Montgomery - The Blue Castle Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Watchmen Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart Sofi Oksanen - Purge Ann Patchett - Bel Canto Inna Patrakova - Naapurit Dan Rhodes - Gold Anne Rice - Interview with a Vampire Kauko Röyhkä - Kaksi aurinkoa Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince Pirkko Saisio - Punainen erokirja Sapphire - Push! Erich Segal - Love Story Mary Ann Shaffer - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion Anita Shreve - The Weight of Water Linda Lay Shuler - She Who Remembers Nevil Shute - Pied Piper Dai Sijie - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Karin Slaughter - Grant County + Will Trent series Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde Garth Stein - The Art of Racing in the Rain John Steinbeck - The Wayward Bus Kathryn Stockett - The Help Bram Stoker - Dracula Patrick Suskind - Perfume Vikas Swarup - Q&A Donna Tartt - The Secret History Jari Tervo - Pyhiesi yhteyteen Voltaire - Candide Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five Sarah Waters - Fingersmith Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind Markus Zusak - The Book Thief

The Modern Library: 200 Best Novels in English since 1950 Progress 23/200 1. A Murder is Announced 2. Nothing - Henry Green 3. Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy 4. The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer 5. December Bride - Sam Hanna Bell 6. My Cousin Rachel - Daphne Du Maurier 7. The West Pier - Patrick Hamilton 8. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers 9. A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell 10. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger 11. Invisible Man: A Novel - Ralph Ellison 12. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway 13. The Natural - Bernard Malamud 14. The Financial Expert - R.K. Narayan 15. Wise Blood: A Novel - Flannery O'Connor 16. East of Eden - John Steinbeck 17. The Sword of Honour Trilogy - Evelyn Waugh 18. Private Life of an Indian Prince - Mulk Raj Anand 19. Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin 20. The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow 21. The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler 22. The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley 23. The Echoing Grove - Rosamond Lehman 24. The Palm-Wine Drunkard - Amos Tutola 25. Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis 26. Lord of the Flies - William Golding 27. The Tortoise and the Hare - Elizabeth Jenkins 28. The Flint Anchor - Sylvia Townsend Warner 29. Molloy: Malone Dies - Samuel Beckett 30. Recognitions - William Gaddis 31. The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith 32. Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov 33. A Legacy - Sybille Bedford 34. Train to Pakistan - Khushwant Singh 35. Owls Do Cry - Janet Frame 36. On the Road - Jack Kerouac 37. Angel - Elizabeth Taylor 38. The Fountain Overflows - Rebecca West 39. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe 40. Anecdotes of Destiny - Isak Dineson 41. From the Terrace - John O'Hara 42. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Sillitoe 43. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs 44. A Heritage and its History - Ivy Compton-Burnett 45. The Little Disturbances of Man - Grace Paley 46. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 47. Balkan Trilogy - Olivia Manning 48. Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetrology: (Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest) - John Updike 49. Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse 50. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 51. A House for Mr Biswas - V.S. Naipaul 52. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark 53. Riders in the Chariot - Patrick White 54. That's How it Was - Maureen Duffy 55. The Reivers - William Faulkner 56. The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing 57. The Lonely Girl - Edna O'Brien 58. Ship of Fools - Katherine Anne Porter 59. The Little Girls - Elizabeth Bowen 60. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carre 61. The Group - Mary McCarthy 62. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 63. Herzog - Saul Bellow 64. Heartland - Wilson Harris 65. Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby 66. Memoirs of a Peon - Frank Sargeson 67. Interpreters - Wole Soyinka 68. A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence 69. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys 70. The Jewel in the Crown - Paul Scott 71. Cotters England - Christina Stead 72. The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron 73. A Grain of Wheat - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o 74. In the Heart of the Country - William H. Gass 75. The Nice and the Good - Iris Murdoch 76. The Unfortunates - B.S. Johnson 77. Happiness and other Stories - Mary Lavin 78. The Godfather - Mario Puzo 79. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies 80. Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian 81. The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth 82. St. Urbain's Horseman - Mordecai Richler 83. Black List, section H - Francis Stuart 84. The Optomist's Daughter - Eudora Welty 85. The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell 86. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon 87. Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow 88. Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala 89. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses - David Lodge 90. The Lost Salt Gift of Blood - Alistair Macleod 91. Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice 92. Saville - David Storey 93. Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge 94. Falconer - John Cheever 95. A Book of Common Prayer - Joan Didion 96. Ice Age - Margaret Drabble 97. Tirra Lirra by the River - Jessica Andersen 98. Plumb - Maurice Gee 99. The Human Factor - Graham Greene 100. Murderer - Roy Heath 101. The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan 102. The Year of the French - Thomas Flanagan 103. From the Fifteenth District - Mavis Gallant 104. Burger's Daughter - Nadine Gordimer 105. Sleepless Nights - Elizabeth Hardwick 106. The Executioner's Song - Norman Mailer 107. A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul 108. Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess 109. The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard 110. Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban 111. Lamb - Bernard MacLaverty 112. Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson 113. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 114. Puffball - Fay Weldon 115. Lanark - Alasdair Gray 116. Red Dragon - Thomas Harris 117. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 118. A Flag for Sunrise - Robert Stone 119. On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin 120. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally 121. The Color Purple - Alice Walker 122. A Boys Own Story - 123. Money - Martin Amis 124. Empire of the Sun - J.G. Ballard 125. Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes 126. In Custody - Anita Desai 127. Nation of Fools - Balraj Khanna 128. Machine Dreams - Jayne Anne Phillips 129. Family and Friends - Anita Brookner 130. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy 131. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurty 132. Black Robe - Brian Moore 133. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson 134. The Sportswriter - Richard Ford 135. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro 136. A Summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor 137. Dark Adapted Eye - Barbara Vine 138. Ellen Foster - Kaye Gibbons 139. Double Whammy - Carl Hiaasen 140. Misery - Stephen King 141. Beloved - Toni Morrison 142. In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje 143. Other Garden - Francis Wyndham 144. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey 145. Where I'm Calling From - Raymond Carver 146. Paris Trout - Pete Dexter 147. Sugar Mother - Elizabeth Jolley 148. Forty-seventeen - Frank Moorhouse 149. Ice Candy Man - Bapsi Sidhwa 150. Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler 151. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe 152. The Book of Evidence - John Banville 153. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos 154. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan 155. Possession - A.S. Byatt 156. Age of Iron - J.M. Coetzee 157. A Home at the End of the World - Michael Cunningham 158. The Snapper - Roddy Doyle 159. Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard 160. Amongst Women - John McGahern 161. The Great World - David Malouf 162. Friend of My Youth - Alice Munro 163. Regeneration Trilogy - Pat Barker 164. Wise Children - Angela Carter 165. A Strange and Sublime Address - Amit Chaudhuri 166. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis 167. Redundancy of Courage - Timothy Mo 168. Mating - Norman Rush 169. Downriver - Iain Sinclair 170. A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley 171. Reading Turgenev - William Trevor 172. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton 173. Death and Nightingales - Eugene McCabe 174. The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe 175. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 176. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides 177. River Sutra - Gita Mehta 178. My Idea of Fun - Will Self 179. The Shipping News - Annie Proulx 180. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh 181. What a Carve Up - Jonathan Coe 182. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres 183. The Folding Star - Alan Hollinghurst 184. Original Sin - P.D. James 185. How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman 186. The Tortilla Curtain - T. Coraghessan Boyle 187. The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald 188. A Fine Balance - Mistry Rohinton 189. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood 190. Asylum - Patrick McGrath 191. Last Orders - Graham Swift 192. Night in Question - Tobias Wolff 193. Quarantine - Jim Crace 194. Underworld - Don Delillo 195. American Pastoral - Philip Roth 196. Lady from Guatemala - V.S. Pritchett 197. The Magus - John Fowles 198. So Long, See You Tomorrow - William Maxwell 199. Children's Bach - Helen Garner 200. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

Books read from the 1001 Books You Must Read before You Die by Peter Boxall - 2006 Progress so far: 139/1001 987. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe 985. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe 971. Candide - Voltaire 959. Evelina – Fanny Burney 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 919. The Nose – Nikolay Gogol 916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe 913. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 910. Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens 909. The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe 905. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 904. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë 903. Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë 902. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë 900. Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell 898. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 897. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne 896. Moby Dick - Herman Melville 892. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell 891. Villette – Charlotte Brontë 890. Bleak House - Charles Dickens 887. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell 886. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens 876. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 873. Les Misérables – Victor Hugo 871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky 869. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens 868. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky 865. The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope 863. Little Woman - Louisa May Alcott 859. Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope 854. Alice Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Caroll 853. Middlemarch - George Eliot 846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy 840. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy 825. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain 821. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy 820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson 808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 805. News from Nowhere – William Morris 804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 803. Diary of a Nobody - George & Weedon Grossmith 794. Dracula - Bram Stoker 790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells 789. The Turn of the Screw – Henry James 776. The Ambassadors – Henry James 740. The Voyage Out - Virginia Woolf 699. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 698. Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf 695. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie 686. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf 680. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh 675. Orlando - Virginia Woolf 671. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner 656. Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham 650. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 643. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein 619. Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell 611. The Years - Virginia Woolf 610. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 608. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 603. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier 601. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson 596. Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood 584. Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf 566. The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford 564. Animal Farm - George Orwell 563. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh 561. Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake 547. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 542. Love in a Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford 529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger 526. Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham 521. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway 495. The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith 494. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tokien 484. On the Road – Jack Kerouac 481. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham 478. The Bell – Iris Murdoch 474. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico 467. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote 465. Memento Mori – Muriel Spark 459. Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee 457. Rabbit, Run – John Updike 456. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 451. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller 450. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark 446. A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch 445. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger 433. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 431. The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark 399. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez 367. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou 365. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison 354. Surfacing – Margaret Atwood 352. The Summer Book – Tove Jansson 305. The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch 278. On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin review 275. Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally 274. A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro 272. The Color Purple – Alice Walker 260. Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis 237. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson 236. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez 222. Beloved - Toni Morrison 196. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving 172. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres 147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt 143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides 133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx 129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres 120. Mr Vertigo - Paul Auster 112. The Information – Martin Amis 92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy 90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho 86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver 69. Pastoralia – George Saunders 54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith 52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho 49. Life of Pi - Yann Martel 38. Gabriel's Gift - Hanif Kureishi 33. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides 28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami 26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer 19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 15. The Colour – Rose Tremain 13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell 9. The Master – Colm Tóibín 6. The Sea – John Banville 3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith 1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Books I'd like to lick own Fiction: Baker, Tiffany - The Gilly Salt Sisters Black, Holly - Doll Bones Bonfiglioli, Kyril - Don't Point that Thing at Me Bradley, Alan - I Am Half Sick of Shadows Bukowski, Charles - Ham on Rye Butcher, Jim - Storm Front Chabon, Michael - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay Comyns, Barbara - Who was Changed and Who was Dead Connolly, John - The Gates Doshi, Tishani - The Pleasure Seekers Earle, Steve - I'll Never Get Out of This World Egan, Jennifer - The Invisible Circus Elphinstone, Margaret - Light Eugenides, Jeffrey - The Marriage Plot Ewing, Barbara - The Circus of Ghosts Fenollera, Natalia Sanmartin - The Awakening of Miss Prim Foster, Alyson - God is an Astronaut Gaiman, Neil & Pratchett, Terry - Good Omens Gavalda, Anna - French Leave Haig, Matt - The Humans Haig, Matt - The Radleys Hartley, L.P. - The Go-Between Healy, Dermot - Long Time, No See Hill, Susan - Dolly Kaye, I.J. - Mountains of the Moon Kennedy Toole, John - A Confederacy of Dunces Laurain, Antoine - The President's Hat Meloy, Colin - Wildwood Mitchell, David - The Bone Clocks Mitchell, Gladys - Watson's Choice Moggach, Deborah - Heartbreak Hotel Morrall, Clare - The Roundabout Man Murray, Paul - An Evening of Long Goodbyes Nesbo, Jo - The Redbreast Niffenegger, Audrey - Raven Girl Parkin, Gaile - Baking Cakes in Kigali Patchett, Ann - Bel Canto Pears, Tim - Disputed Land Pierre, DBC - Vernon God Little Pratchett, Terry - Dodger Richardson, CS - The Emperor of Paris Rogan, Charlotte - The Lifeboat Segal, Erich - The Class Silverstone, Shel - Falling Up Sloan, Robin - Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck, John - The Short Novels of John Steinbeck Watson, S.J. - Before I Go to Sleep Waugh, Evelyn - A Handful of Dust Waugh, Evelyn - Vile Bodies Wetta, Stephen - If Jack's In Love Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth Williams, Tennessee - A Streetcar Named Desire Woolf, Virginia - The Waves Zevin, Gabrielle - The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Non Fiction: Bair, Deirdre - Simone de Beauvoir : A Biography Beach, Sylvia - The Letters of Sylvia Beach Bowker, Gordon - George Orwell Brody, Leslie - Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford Carter, Angela - Expletives Deleted Henshaw, Sarah - The Bookshop that Floated Hughes, Gerald - Ted & I Kafka, Franz - Letters to Friends, Family and Editors Knight, Lynn - Lemon Sherbert and Dolly Blue Lurie, Leslie Gilbert & Rita - Bending Toward the Sun : A Mother and Daughter Memoir Mitford, Nancy - A Talent to Annoy Moore, Lucy - Anything Goes : A Biography of the Roaring Twenties Nabakov, Vladimir - Speak, Memory O'Brien, Edna - Country Girl Plath, Sylvia - The Unabridged Journals Reid, Christopher - The Letters of Ted Hughes Ross, Abbie - Hippy Dinners Sewell, Brian - Outsider: Always Almost: Never Quite Shilling, Jane - The Stranger in the Mirror Walker, Alice - The Chicken Chronicles Walls, Jeanette - The Glass Castle: A Memoir Welty, Eudora & Maxwell, William - What There Is to Say We Have Said Werber, Millie & Keller, Eve - Two Rings: A Story of Love and War Wheeler, Thom - One Steppe Beyond Weiss, Luisa - My Berlin Kitchen

The Shameful Reckoning of My Books TBR Last year's TBR was based solely on books on bookshelves ... and not on books in boxes .. lofts .. cupboards and inaccessible places. This year's list is based on fact .. and very shameful it is too. You will be wondering how I have the audacity to buy any more books when I should be reading these .. I'm wondering it myself actually and can only blame fresh air and all the bookstores for their devilishly enticing shop window displays (and you .. of course ) It's patently clear that I will have to insist that The Book People remove me from their mailing list .. I might even sue them for damages I won't be buying any more books this year but here's a books acquired in 2014 link just in case Progress 18/242 Fiction: Aaronovitch, Ben - Whispers Underground Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes Abercrombie, Joe - Red Country Alison, Rosie - The Very Thought of You Almond, David - The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean Amis, Kingsley - The Old Devils Anderson, James - The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy Atkinson, Kate - Started Early Took My Dog Atwood, Margaret - The Blind Assassin Barker, Pat - The Ghost Road Barker, Pat - Regeneration Barker, Pat - Toby's Room Benson, EF - Mrs Ames (Bloomsbury) Beauman, Ned - The Teleportation Accident Benson, E.F. - Lucia Rising (on loan) Binchy, Maeve - Whitethorn Woods Bloom, Amy - Away Boyd, William - Any Human Heart Bradley, James - The Resurrectionist Bulgakov, Mikhail - The Master and Margarita Bullington, Jesse - The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart Burnett, Frances Hodgson - A Little Princess Burnett, Frances Hodgson - The Secret Garden Byatt, AS - Possession Carey, Peter - Oscar and Lucinda Carter, Angela - Nights at the Circus Carter, Angela - The Passion of New Eve Chang, Jung - Wild Swans Christie, Agatha - Appointment with Death Christie, Agatha - At Bertram's Hotel Christie, Agatha - Curtain: Poirot's Last Case Christie, Agatha - Death on the Nile Christie, Agatha - Dumb Witness Christie, Agatha - Five Little Pigs Christie, Agatha - Hercule Poirot's Christmas Christie, Agatha - Lord Edgware Dies Christie, Agatha - The Murder at the Vicarage Christie, Agatha - Murder on the Orient Express Christie, Agatha - The Mysterious Affair at Styles Christie, Agatha - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Christie, Agatha - Peril at End House Christie, Agatha - Third Girl Clements, Abby - Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop Coe, Jonathan - The Rotters Club Comyns, Barbara - Sisters By a River Connolly, John - Nocturnes Craig, Amanda - Hearts and Minds Cunningham, Michael - The Hours Dahl, Roald - The BFG Dahl, Roald - Charlie & the Glass Elevator Dahl, Roald - The Witches De Bernieres, Louis - Captain Corelli's Mandolin Dennys, Joyce - Henrietta Sees it Through (Bloomsbury) De Waal, Edmund - The Hare with Amber Eyes Dickens, Charles - Dickens at Christmas Divry, Sophie - The Diary of Unrequited Love Drabble, Margaret - The Red Queen Dumas, Alexandre - Robin Hood Du Maurier, Daphne - The Birds and other stories Du Maurier, Daphne - The House on the Strand Du Maurier, Daphne - Jamaica Inn Eco, Umberto - The Name of the Rose Eggers, Dave - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Englander, Nathan - The Ministry of Special Cases Eugenides, Jeffrey - My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead Fairbairn, Charlotte - With the Sound of the Sea Fallada, Hans - Alone in Berlin Faulks, Sebastian - Birdsong Fforde, Jasper - The Big Over Easy Fforde, Jasper - The Fourth Bear Fforde, Jasper - One of our Thursday's is Missing Fforde, Jasper - The Woman Who Died a Lot Fitzgerald, F.Scott - The Beautiful and the Damned Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Tender is the Night Fox, Essie - The Somnambulist Flynn, Gillian - Gone Girl French, Dawn - A Tiny Bit Marvellous French, Vivien - The Robe of Skulls Freud, Esther - The Sea House Funke, Cornelia - Reckless Galloway, Steven - The Cellist of Sarajevo Gardner, Sally - The Red Necklace Gibbons, Stella - Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm Gogol, Nikolai - The Collected Tales Gold, Glen David - Carter Beats the Devil Goss, Theodora - The Thorn and The Blossom Grassic Gibbon, Lewis - Sunset Song Green, Roger Lancelyn - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table Greene, Graham - Brighton Rock Haddon, Mark - The Red House Haig, Matt - The Last Family in England Harkaway, Nick - Angelmaker Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter Hay, Sheridan - The Secret of Lost Things Hill, Susan - The Man in the Picture Hoare, Philip - Leviathan Hoeg, Peter - Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow Hornby, Nick - About a Boy Hornby, Nick - A Long Way Down Hornby, Nick - How to be Good Hornby, Nick - Juliet Naked Hornby, Nick - Slam Hustvedt, Siri - What I Loved Irving, John - The Cider House Rules Irving, John - The World According to Garp Jacobson, Howard - The Finkler Question Jones, Sadie - The Outcast Kingsolver, Barbara - The Lacuna Kipling, Rudyard - The Jungle Book Lakhous, Amara - Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio Lawrence, DH - Women in Love Le Carre, John - The Spy who Came in from the Cold Lessing, Doris - The Golden Notebook Lindgren, Astrid - Emil and the Great Escape Lindgren, Astrid - Emil and the Sneaky Rat Lindgren, Astrid - Emil's Clever Pig Lindgren, Astrid - Karlson Flies Again Lindgren, Astrid - Karlson on the Roof Lindgren, Astrid - Lotta Makes a Mess Lindgren, Astrid - Lotta Says No Lindgren, Astrid - Pippi Goes Abroad Lindgren, Astrid - Pippi in the South Seas Lindgren, Astrid - Pippi Longstocking Mantel, Hilary - Fludd Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - The Autumn of the Patriarch Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - Chronicle of a Death Foretold Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - Leaf Storm Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - No One Writes to the Colonel Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - Of Love and Other Demons Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor Maugham, Somerset - Ashenden Maugham, Somerset - Christmas Holiday Maugham, Somerset - Don Fernando Maugham, Somerset - Liza of Lambeth Maugham, Somerset - The Magician Maugham, Somerset - The Narrow Corner Maugham, Somerset - The Painted Veil Maugham, Somerset - Up at the Villa McGregor, Jon - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things McPherson, Catriona - Dandy Gilver & the Proper Treatment of Blood Stains Mistry, Rohinton - A Fine Balance Mitford, Nancy - Don't Tell Alfred Moers, Walter - The 131⁄2 Lives of Captain Bluebear Montgomery, LM - Anne of Green Gables Morrall, Clare - Natural Flights of the Human Mind Morton, Kate - The House at Riverton Murdoch, Iris - The Black Prince Murdoch, Iris - The Flight from the Enchanter Murdoch, Iris - The Unofficial Rose Nesbit, E - The Railway Children Norton, Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth Oksanen, Sofi - Purge O'Neill, Joseph - Netherland Orwell, George - Keep the Aspidistra Flying Peake, Mervyn - Mr Pye Pratchett, Terry and Baxter, Stephen - The Long Earth Preston, Caroline - Gatsby's Girl Radcliffe, Ann - The Mysteries of Udolpho Ransome, Arthur - Winter Holiday Rhodes, Dan - This is Life Rodriguez, Deborah - The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul Rymer, James Malcolm - Sweeney Todd Schlink, Bernard - The Reader Smith, Ali - The Accidental Spark, Muriel - Robinson Spark, Muriel - The Comforters Steinbeck, John - Cannery Row Steinbeck, John - East of Eden Steinbeck, John - The Pearl Steinbeck, John - The Red Pony Stevenson, DE - Mrs Tim of the Regiment (Bloomsbury) Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island Tartt, Donna - The Little Friend Taylor, G.P. - Mariah Mundi & the Ghost Diamonds Thirkell, Angela - Christmas at High Rising Thirkell, Angela - High Rising Toksvig, Sandi - Valentine Grey Townsend, Sue - Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years Townsend, Sue - Adrian Mole & the Weapons of Mass Destruction Udall, Brady - The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint Vickers, Sally - Miss Garnet's Angel Walter, Jess - Beautiful Ruins Waters, Sarah - Fingersmith Waters, Sarah - The Night Watch Welsh, Irvine - Trainspotting Whipple, Dorothy - Someone at a Distance (Persephone) Wilde, Oscar - The Importance of being Earnest Wiles, Will - Care of Wooden Floors Williams, Nigel - East of Wimbledon Williams, Nigel - They Came From SW19 Williams, Nigel - The Wimbledon Poisoner Winterson, Jeanette - Sexing the Cherry Winton, Tim - Cloudstreet Wodehouse, PG - Right Ho, Jeeves Non Fiction: Baker, Danny - Going to Sea in a Sieve Betjeman, John - Trains and Buttered Toast Bryson, Bill - Down Under Child, Julia - My Life in France Claridge L - Tamara De Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence Defoe, Daniel - A Journal of the Plague Year De Waal, Edmund - The Hare with Amber Eyes Faulks, Sebastian - Faulks on Fiction Fitzgerald, Penelope - So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald Grove, Valerie - Laurie Lee: The Well Loved Stranger Hodgson, Vere - Few Eggs and No Oranges (Persephone) Holroyd, Michael - A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Helen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families Keats, John - Bright Star: The Complete Poems and Selected Letters Last, Nella - Nella Last's Peace Manguel, Alberto - A Reading Diary Marquez, Gabriel Garcia - Living to Tell the Tale McCourt, Frank - Angela's Ashes McCourt, Frank - Tis McGrath, Alistair E - CS Lewis: A Life Milligan, Spike - Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall Milligan, Spike - It Ends with Magic Milligan, Spike - 'Rommel?' 'Gunner Who?' Mortimer, Roger - Dear Lumpy Mosley, Diana - The Pursuit of Laughter Murdoch, Iris - A Writer at War: the Letters and Diaries of Iris Murdoch 1939-1945 Nicholson, Virginia - Among the Bohemians Ozma, Alice - The Reading Promise Pasternak, Boris - Letters to Georgian Friends Phillips, John - Vita to Violet: The Letters Powell, Julie - Julie & Julia Proulx, Annie - Bird Cloud Ronson, Jon - The Psychopath Test Rugg, Julie & Murphy, Lynda - A Book Addicts Treasury Sheffield, Jack - Teacher, Teacher (on loan) Sitwell, Edith - Selected Letters Stibbe, Nina - Love Nina Strachey, Lytton - Eminent Victorians Van Gogh, Vincent - The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh Webster, Jason - Andalus (on loan) Webster, Jason - Duende (on loan) White, Florence - Good Things in England (Persephone) Wood, Ronnie - Ronnie Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 1 Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 2 Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 3 Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 4 Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 5 Woolf, Virginia - The Letters of Virginia Woolf Vol 6

July 2014 (6 read) One of Our Thursdays is Missing - Jasper Fforde 4/5 review Replay - Ken Grimwood 4/5 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres 4/5 review Mrs Ames - E.F Benson 3/5 review Duende - Jason Webster 4/5 The World Without Us - Alan Weisman 3/5 review August 2014 (5 read) Clever Girl - Tessa Hadley 4/5 review Heading Out To Wonderful - Robert Goolrick 4/5 review The Taste of Apple Seeds - Katharina Hagena 4/5 The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp - Eva Rice 2/5 review Frog Music - Emma Donoghue 4/5 September 2014 (3 read and 1 listened to) Uncle Silas - H.E. Bates The Misunderstanding - Irene Nemirovsky 4/5 How To Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran - Audible d/l 4/5 review Kate Bush's Before the Dawn Tour Programme 100/5 October 2014 (9 read) Frost Hollow Hall - Emma Carroll 5/5 The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen 4/5 review Walking Home - Clare Balding 3/5 review The Dynamite Room - Jason Hewitt 5/5 review The Bookstore - Deborah Meyler 3/5 The Body In the Library - Agatha Christie 3/5 The Birds - Daphne du Maurier 4/5 (short story) The Old Man - Daphne du Maurier 4/5 (short story) The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury 4/5 November 2014 (7 read) The Wimbledon Poisoner - Nigel Williams 5/5 The Apple Tree - Daphne du Maurier 4/5 (short story) Kiss me Again Stranger - Daphne du Maurier 3/5 (short story) More Fool Me - Stephen Fry - Audible d/l 4/5 The Panopticon - Jenni Fagan 4/5 The Little Photographer - Daphne du Maurier 4/5 (short story) Monte Verita - Daphne du Maurier 3/5 (short story) December 2014 (1 read and 1 listened to) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 5/5 (re-read) The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Elizabeth Gaskell 4/5 review

Books Read 2009 Books Read 2010 Books Read 2011 Books Read 2012 Books Read 2013 Total books read in 2009 ... 49 - incomplete list: 40 fiction & 9 non-fiction (1 audio) } male authors: 24 .. female authors: 25 Total books read in 2010 ... 141 (94 fiction, 9 non-fiction, 4 short stories, 2 plays & 32 audio } male authors: 75 .. female authors: 66) Total books read in 2011 ... 109 (71 fiction, 26 non-fiction, 1 short story & 11 audio } male authors: 54 .. female authors: 55) Total books read in 2012 ... 89 (50 fiction, 27 non-fiction, 3 short stories, 1 poem & 8 audio } male authors: 48 .. female authors: 41) Total books read in 2013 ... 109 (67 fiction, 21 non-fiction, 5 short stories, 1 poem, 1 essay, 1 collection & 13 audio } male authors: 57 .. female authors: 51 plus all those in the short story collection) Good luck everyone with your reading challenges in 2014 Hope it's a good reading year for you all. Make yourself at home .. there's always tea/coffee/cake and toast available though something stronger will be provided for anyone daft enough to read the reviews Please feel free to tell me I'm talking rubbish (to limit the potential for RSI just use copy & paste) and to point out all the times I went against my own resolution of not buying a book based on its cover. I won't be buying any books in 2014 though .. pretty or otherwise It would most certainly bankrupt me and possibly see me out on my ear. If this does happen though a hotline will be set up so that you can kindly donate beans and underpants and stuff .. please give generously .. after all .. it would be partially your fault Quicklinks Mount TBR (look away now ) 1001 Challenge Modern Library Wishlist Conquering Mount Virginia Book Club Forum Member's Favourite Fiction Book Club Forum Member's Favourite Non-Fiction Poached Quotes on Toast Poppyshake's 133 Books You Must Read Before Your Toes Curl Up The English Counties Challenge Most Famous Books Set in Every American State 5 - Books I loved 4 - Books I liked a lot (almost as good as above .. though possibly devoid of toast quotes ) 3 - Books I liked (was possibly let down by a bad cover, no toast or no humour .. might even have been read on a Tuesday .. it's hard to love anything then ) 2 - Books I struggled through (well abandon them then .. you idiot!!) 1 - Books I abandoned (let's hope someone bought me some fortitude for Christmas ) January 2014 (7 read and 1 listened to) Dear Lumpy: Letters to a Disobedient Daughter - Roger Mortimer and Louise Mortimer 4/5 review Sisters By a River - Barbara Comyns 5/5 review Beyond the Great Indoors - Ingvar Ambjørnsen 5/5 review Bonkers : My Life in Laughs - Jennifer Saunders - Audible d/l 4/5 review On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin 4/5 review Kilvert's Diary - Francis Kilvert 4/5 review Mrs Bridge - Evan S. Connell 4/5 review Love, Nina - Nina Stibbe 5/5 review February 2014 (6 read and 1 listened to) High Rising - Angela Thirkell 4/5 review The Library of Unrequited Love - Sophie Divry 5/5 review The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt 4/5 review Mr Pye - Mervyn Peake 4/5 review Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body - M.C. Beaton - Audible d/l 3/5 Christmas at High Rising - Angela Thirkell 3/5 (short stories) review Hollow City - Ransom Riggs 4/5 review March 2014 (6 read) The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd 4/5 review Bedsit Disco Queen - Tracey Thorn 4/5 review The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx 4/5 review Paperboy - Christopher Fowler 4/5 review The Darling Buds of May - H.E. Bates 3/5 review The Crane Wife - Patrick Ness 3/5 review April 2014 (5 read and 1 listened to) The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker - Audible d/l 5/5 review The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 - Sue Townsend 5/5 (re-read) The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer 5/5 Ronnie - Ronnie Wood 3/5 review The Middlesteins - Jami Attenberg 4/5 The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden 4/5 May 2014 (5 read and 1 listened to) Idiopathy - Sam Byers 4/5 review Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes - Audible d/l 4/5 review Perfect - Rachel Joyce 4/5 Heft - Liz Moore 3/5 review The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman 5/5 review We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo 5/5 review June 2014 (7 read) Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren 4/5 review The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne 5/5 review How to be Good - Nick Hornby 4/5 Care of Wooden Floors - Will Wiles 5/5 review Sketcher - Roland Watson-Grant 3/5 Trawler - Redmond O'Hanlon 3/5 review Teacher, Teacher - Jack Sheffield 4/5

What aren't I eating .. that is the question Just had cheese, biscuits, grapes and walnuts .. with a big glass of wine ... then some fruit cake

Watched Bear Grylls' Wild Weekend with Stephen Fry ... very good ... I love old Stephen When they were settling down in their sleeping bags .. if I had been Bear .. I would definitely have asked for a bedtime story

Despicable Me 2 in 3D ... bit disappointed .. didn't think it was as good as the original. Not much of a storyline .. do love those minions though

Oh! ... but ... but ... ... I didn't understand it and that won't be a problem for you here I'm sure. I will go a wandering in the old gardens of the moon again one of these days .. when I've collected my wits (anyone seen them? )

Very Happy Reading in 2014 Chrissy!

No I haven't I just meant I'm ancient enough to have seen her live but I didn't know that .. if i didn't get my ar*e in gear .. I'd have blown my chance forever. I think the tickets sold out quickly anyway. I don't think I've seen it Kate stopped touring after that first tour and I know she does as little as she can get away with to promote new material etc (and all of that is talking .. you don't see her performing these days.) I heard it said that she declined the lifetime achievement award at The Brits because it meant she would have to perform She is quite reclusive. I always tell Alan that, if by some miracle, I ever get a book published then he will have to do all the promoting .. I'll put him in a spotty dress I love listening to music on headphones .. sometimes I listen to something and it's like hearing it for the first time .. I hear words that I never knew were sung

The drama didn't follow the book exactly but that was to its credit as you say. I thought .. just like the book .. it got steadily worse though. Hated the last episode .. very un-Austen and I didn't like Penelope's portrayal of Lady Catherine at all. It's a bit much to single her out though as I didn't like many of them but then they'd been saddled with a pretty terrible script. All the scenery etc was stunning though and I did like James Fleet as Mr Bennett. Anna was okay as Lizzie (hard not to think of Jennifer's vivacious portrayal though) but Matthew just isn't Colin Couldn't really reconcile Lydia and Wickham here as the Lydia and Wickham in P&P. Also Georgiana made the wrong choice Also caught up with Gangsta Granny and enjoyed it lots .. very funny but also moving .. well done David (loved the Strictly theme )

Wear your freckles with pride Love your pics .. especially your brother's snow tree with all the candles .. so pretty Also love the table full of food (of course) .. and I love it that you have a huge radio on the table .. were you listening to music as you ate?

Haha .. love the freckle quote .. I love Pippi already