willoyd

Linking to a URL wasn't really viable as I was trying to include a photo off my hard drive, and when I tried (b) it kept telling me that there the image extensions weren't acceptable. (It was a fairly standard jpeg file). I was trying to copy and paste.

Jim Carr's books are all very different - that's almost his hallmark. However, there is an underlying quirky humour which manifests itself most strongly in books like Steeple Sinderby (almost brought to real life by Bradford City this year!!). Many of them are semi-autobiographical, or at least pull on his experiences. Outside A Month in the Country, my favourite is The Harpole Report - a wonderfully satirical look at primary education (much of it still relevant, even if it was written back in 1972), one of the few books that has made me laugh out loud. It was Frank Muir's Desert Island choice. Carr was a primary headteacher (with a very particular take on schools), so again there is much experience decanted into this novel. I've mentioned it before, but also worth a read is Byron Rogers's biography of Carr - The Last Englishman. Almost as quirky as the man himself, it's essential reading to get the most out of his books.

Wow, someone else who has read The Ruins of Time. I've not come across anybody else before who has read it, so I'm really glad you enjoyed it too! Hope you enjoy Bleak House too (that first chapter on the fog is amazing - whether you like it or not! - but nothing like the rest of the book!)

Just to avoid disappointment, Wolf Hall is about Thomas rather than Oliver. (Is that who you mean, given The Other Boleyn Girl's time-frame?). Hope you enjoy Wolf Hall - I absolutely loved it, but Mantel's habit of referring to Cromwell as 'he' and 'him' takes a bit of getting used to.

Slightly diverting - but how do you get the images into your post like that please shelley/frankie? I only seem to be able to get thumbnail attachments (as in my post earlier), which then don't always load sufficiently quickly.

That's true! Which indicates that I'm probably a hopeless person for making suggestions for you, but...... Bleak House was one of the first Dickens books that I enjoyed through to the finish, so it could be a good one for you too if it's your first. It is meant to be one of his best, if not the best. However it is a big read. I recently read Oliver Twist for the first time, and really enjoyed it too. It's somewhat slimmer and, whilst it has been made into all sorts of films, plays, musicals etc., the book felt remarkably fresh. Certainly there were whole swathes of the book I'd never come across before but which made the book so much stronger. Great Expectations, again perhaps a bit less daunting than Bleak House, is one that others rave about but, whilst I enjoyed it, it didn't quite grab me in the same way as the other two or my latest read of his, David Copperfield. Whichever you alight on, I really hope you enjoy it even as much as half as I have the ones I've read - I'm turning into quite an addict!

My favourite book covers are largely from the Folio Society. Of these, I think my most favourite are the covers for Mistress Masham's Repose, and any one of those used for a set of Charles Dickens publised a few years ago. Samples below (the Dickens is the front cover for Bleak House):

Hmmmm. I beg to differ - have just finished it with a huge sigh of relief, and reviewed it for my face to face book group. But I know I'm in a distinct minority, so hope you enjoy it Kidsmum. I did enjoy Whispers Underground (a very different type of book of course!) - a great series, with oodles of imaginative ideas - , and, looking at your York list, absolutely loved Bleak House - one of my top five books of all time. I'll be interested in what you make of the Thackeray - I've only ever read Vanity Fair (another favourite), and hardly know even the names of the rest of his other work aside from The Luck of Barry Lyndon, and that only because of the film. I've also just started reading Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, so will also be interested in your take on The Ladies Paradise. (But if you're anything like me, buying them doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be read that soon!).

Thanks Devi! I'm sure they will, and I've got several I'm really looking forward to. Kidsmum, Bobblybear - it may be just my mood rather than the book itself. I've also found over the past few years that I've got less and less interested in that sort of book. I used to read loads, but I've found that my tastes seem to be gravitating more towards those that are more character driven. Plot driven novels, e.g. thrillers etc., just don't hold me any more. I should have learned by now, but I keep picking them up thinking they're going to be great, and then realising that although they initially appeal, once I get into them I rapidly start losing interest. i do like a fair bit of crime - but it's again those with strong characters or an equally strong sense of place - e.g. Leon, Camilleri, Simenon, Mankell. To be honest, I hardly ever remember the plots in detail, but just love the people and places involved. I think that probably explains why the three fiction six-star books I've read in the past twelve months are the ones they are: Pure, Between the Acts, and David Copperfield. Copperfield has a strong plot line*, but in the other two it's distinctly subsidiary (hardly extant at all in Between the Acts!). What marks them all out is a very strong (huge) sense of place (and time), and an equally strong focus on the characters (Copperfield has the most amazing set I've possibly ever met in a book). BTW Kidsmum, I see you're reading Cloud Atlas. How are you finding it, as I've just bought it with a mind to read it before seeing the film? *Well, on second thoughts, I suppose it does, but even then it's still subsidiary - what marks the book out are the string of characters David gets to know as he progresses through life. In fact, the plot is of virtually no interest by comparison at all now I think about it!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn * So much for a book of my choice. This promised so much when dipping in the bookshop. I don't know whether my mojo is starting to come under pressure, or whether I'm just not as tolerant or patient with books, or something else, but this is another book where I've got fifty to a hundred pages in, and I just can't stand it. I can't abide the lead characters (both about as self-centred and needy as each other), it reads just liike any one of a couple of dozen other so-called thrillers, and I'm sitting there asking myself the questions "Why? Do I care?". As I didn't, I stopped.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada * Not an awful lot to add to the comments in my weekly review earlier today. I pushed on to finish the book this afternoon as I really didn't want it hanging around any longer. In fact, it improved substantially in the final part, where the language much more closely reflected the horrors being experienced, but overall it didn't make sufficient impression to change my view of the book in its entirety. Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers * I also tried starting this, another book group book. Barely got past the first two or three dozen pages, but I was already thoroughly irritated by the overblown ('poetic' is the word I've heard to describe it), stylised writing, and the detailed death and shooting. I know that's the subject material, and I wouldn't normally being read this sort of book, but it's simply confirmed my prejudices, and I'm off to find some reading of my choosing - I am no fan of war orientated fiction, and that's now been four in a row. There are other things to consider in this world.

Reading notes for week ending Feb 23rd I've had to put Les Miserables aside in order to get through my book club books for this month. Started with Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin at the end of last week, and am about three quarters of the way through. It's received wonderful reviews, but I have to say I don't like it, and am really only going to finish it so I can discuss it properly. It's a grim subject, which doesn't help, but I find the tone of it almost flippant. I don't know whether that is deliberate to underline the horror of what is going on, but this continually jars. And yet it is also very laborious, especially the dialogue. Maybe it's a function of the translation from German (which, whilst I enjoy speaking, always strikes me as engendering a very laborious style of speech), and certainly I do seem to have a problem with German writers. I really can't emphathise with any of the characters either - they just don't seem real to me at all, and again this may be a function of the tone. The villains (and there are plenty of them) are vile, but in a cartoony sort of way, whilst those who aren't seem to be all hopelessly, and helplessly, naive. This may be how German society was under the Nazis - that feeling of helplessness - but it all feels so simplistic, little children versus the horrible baddies, with just that underlying sense of brutality that makes it anything but a children's book. Fallada might have intended all this, and it has obviously struck a massive chord with many readers, but for me it just doesn't work, and I can't wait to put it down for good. In the meantime, I've sated my restlessness with a few more acquisitions in sales, charity shops etc - the danger of being on half term!. I can't wait to tackle a few of them. Toby's Room by Pat Barker Chasing Venus by Andrea Wulf About Time by Adam Frank The Blackhouse by Peter May Lewis Man by Peter May Living, Thinking, Looking by Siri Hustvedt We're planning to go cycling in the Hebrides for a week in the summer, so we both intend to give the Peter May books a go before then, both obtained through a Kindle sale.

The Past When did you start to love reading? From the start. My mother told me I learned to read when I was three, and spent much of my time reading to my younger brother. What books did you love as a child (either read to or to read yourself)? The stand-outs include Enid Blyton, particularly The Secret Seven, The Magic Faraway Tree and her Nature Book; Winnie the Pooh and the attached poetry books; Paddington Bear (first come across in a Blue Peter annual, as Michael Bond was a cameraman on the programme - I still find him funny); The Rev W Awdrey's Railway series; Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit series; Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies; Ian Fleming's Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang; the Swallows and Amazons series (the first books I collected: 2/6d for a second hand hardback). Other books/authors I can remember enjoying: Malcolm Saville, Biggles, John Wingate's Submariner Sinclair; Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings series Childhood memories of reading (if you have them)? Sitting on the stairs, two steps up, my favourite place to read. Reading Lord of the Rings under my desk at school, I just couldn't put it down. Being forced to read Lord of the Flies, which I hated (and did until rereading very recently and realising it was not a book for children but about children - very different). Did you read books for school? Yes, especially as I took both O and A-level English Literature. Books I remember reading include at O-Level: Barchester Towers, Pickwick Papers; at A-Level: Emma (the start of my love affair with Jane Austen); Middlemarch, The Canterbury Tales - all still favourites; also The Great Gatsby - which I still dislike. Favourites Favourite book: J.L. Carr - A Month in the Country, closely followed by Sense and Sensiblity and Bleak House Favourite author: Virginia Woolf, a shade in front of the three above. Favourite genre(s): Nineteenth century classics, but also love a whole range of genres, including Eurocrime and, in non-fiction, History and historical biography; travel and exploration; science; landscape history. Your Collection Do you own an ereader? Yes - Kindle keyboard, also use my phone (equipped with Kindle for Android). Ebooks or physical books (or both)? Both - different uses at different times, but do prefer physical as long as the typeface is a readable size. Hardcover or paperback (or both)? Generally prefer hardcovers, but can often only afford paperbacks. New books or used books (or both)? New books, but have loads of used ones. Big books or small books (or both)? Not bothered, but too big means difficult to read. What language are most of your books written in? English, with occasional French or German. Favourite book shop(s): Our local independent, The Grove Bookshop, in Ilkley - brilliant, especially given the size. Do you buy a lot of books? Far, far too many - can't keep up. Do you spend a lot of money on books? Far, far too much. Amount of owned books: around 3000. Amount of books read: about 50 or so a year. Amount of books TBR: Don't keep track. Prefer to read as the mood takes me, rather than having anything of that sort hanging over my head. Reading How often do you read? daily. Where do you read? Anywhere I can get away with it. I do read a lot on the train commuting, and have been known to choose that option even though it's one of the slowest means of getting home, simply to have half an hour or so to myself reading. When do you read? Any time, especially now have acess through Kindle and phone. How fast do you read? Fairly fast, once got stuck in. The Forum When did you join this forum? September 2009 How did you find this forum? Searching through internet for an online book forum.

If you are looking for a general book on underground London, then two others that might be worth exploring are Trench and Hillman's London Under London, which is much stronger on detail and more rigorous on the history than Ackroyd. Stephen Smith's Underground London is more personal, being more an account of his explorations, but it has still much interesting information in it. There are some good books on specific areas, especially the rivers, e.g. Nicholas Barton's The Lost Rivers of London, or Paul Talling's little book London's Lost Rivers which I've found great for tracing the routes through the city, leading me to some fascinating little corners.

Antarctica: An Intimate Portrait of the World's Most Mysterious Continent by Gabrielle Walker **** With five visits, or maybe more by now, Gabrielle Walker is as close to a frequent visitor to Antarctica as it's probably viable to get, although she certainly meets some people who have clocked up some serious time in the far south. The blurb claimes that this is the first book to capture the 'whole story' of Antarctica, but if one is honest, to do so would take a far bigger tome than would be realistically viable. Instead, Walker plays to her strengths, the science, and has written a fascinating overview of (presumably some of) the main strands that are being researched on the continent. Starting at Macmurdo, Antarctica's unofficial capital, she divides the continent into four main areas, the Eastern Coast, the High Plateau (Eastern Ice Cap), the Peninsula, and the Western Ice Cap, and, visiting one or more bases in each area, introduces the work being carried on as well as the main characters and character of the bases themselves. In the process, she brings her journalistic skills fully to bear, not least in explaining all that science in straightforward, but still thoroughly involving, layman's terms; at least I could understand it, and I am definitely a layman! I also found the sections dealing with overwintering in Antarctica both fascinating and scary. Woven into this are many of the key episodes in Antarctic history, including the stories of Scott and Amundsen; Shackleton; Cherry-Garrard, Wilson and Bowers; Maudsley; Byrd. The result is a book that,whilst maybe not covering the whole story, certainly gives one a vivid picture of what Antarctica is like, and that is like nowhere else on this planet. With temperatures capable of dropping to -80 degrees centigrade, months of darkness (enough to put people regularly under severe psychological pressure), all on almost unimaginable scales (3km depth of ice, underwater lakes the size of the Lake Huron, 50km wide glaciers, etc etc), the word unique is not inappropriate! Walker also reminds us how important Antarctica is in our understanding of global climate change, and how important its influence is likely to be as change happens, not least as a source of meltwater that could see sea levels rise dramatically, a theme that is gradually built on towards the final chapters, where she discusses the rapid and dramatic declines in ice volumes in the Western Antarctic, adding signficant meat to her final summary. This book isn't high literature. It is, however, a well written, highly engaging and easily read account of the scientific and human side to Antarctica. It's a book that I can readily see myself going back to to dip into different sections, and one that has certainly enhanced my interest in this amazing continent.

I'm a fan of the Delphi Classics collections, and bought the complete works of Dickens for the princely sum of £1.67. The vastly improved formatting, the inclusion of the original illustrations, and other bits and pieces make this definitely worth paying the peanuts charged compared to the freebie downloads, which I've found so inconsistent and skeletal in their format. Finished David Copperfield a couple of weeks ago for my book group. Has to be one of the greatest collections of characters in a single book ever, and worth it for them, even when the plotting flagged a tiny bit in places. I'd still put Bleak House out in front, but it's a thoroughly worthy contender, and a possibility for my top 20 favourite book list!

Just a couple of extra notes to what's been said so far. Kindle books are DRM protected, but it's pretty straightforward to get hold of the software to strip the DRM out. As long as you only use the subsequent file for personal use you are extremely unlikely to incur any problems. I now have most of my (several hundred) Kindle books backed up in non-DRM files, so that if anything should happen to my Amazon account I still have my books. It also means I can now transfer them reasonably easily onto other e-readers if I should want to change. The software also enables me to convert non-Kindle files to .mobi format, which is readable by a Kindle, so I'm not restricted to Amazon websites or even those, like Project Gutenberg, which make a Kindle-friendly format available. In terms of charging with what sorts of cables - if you find the charger that comes with the Kindle from the US doesn't work for you, it's easy and cheap to get hold of a replacement through Amazon or ebay (I used Amazon), not least because it's exactly the same as the charging leads used by HTC for their One and Desire series phones (and probably others,but I know about these ones!). As I have one of these, I only ever carry the one cable round with me. It's a USB cable, that then plugs into the back of a plug to connect to the mains. I have got both a UK and a European plug which I swap around depending on where I'm travelling. The cable also plugs into a car adaptor, so I can charge in the car when necessary. Just to confirm: the e-ink screens are excellent, and vastly better than backlit ones in my experience.

There are a few knocking around, but still surprisingly few. The first was by Charles Wilbour in the mid-1800s, and that's the one used by Everyman and Modern Library. Another 19th century translation is by Isabel Hapgood, and that's the one that is used by a number of the for-free downloads, and by Project Gutenberg. Both these appear in abridged and unabridged versions. The unabridged Signet Classics uses a modern, 1980s, translation by Lee Fahnestock and Norman Macafee. Penguin and The Folio Society use a slightly older one by Norman Denny, which is essentially unabridged, except for the removal of two passages to a couple of appendices at the end. The most recent translation belongs to Vintage, who commissioned it from Julia Rose. If you Google "Les Miserables which translation", they all have their supporters, depending on what people are looking for. A totally faiithful translation is almost impossible - French simply doesn't translate exactly into English (nor do any two languages!) - and anyway, such a translation is likely to read as very clunky. I've gone for the Denny as I found some of the modernisms in the Rose translation somewhat irritating, whilst from what I found when dipping in and comparing, the Wilbour and Hapgood translations for me seemed to be lacking a bit in natural flow (although my 20-year old son read the Wilbour translation and loved it). I'm about 200 pages in, and thoroughly enjoying it. I didn't look at the Fahnestock-Macafee version. Update on book acquisitions Foolishly had a bit of an explore of the charity bookshops and local independent in Ilkley yesterday, who had a bit of a min-sale, and came away with more than I intended, so the pile to read grows ever longer: Touche by Agnes Catherine Poitier To Sea and Back by Richard Shelton Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by John Baxter Through The Window by Julian Barnes Girl Reading by Katie Ward The Pelican Guide to English Literature edited by Boris Ford (7 vols) Shakespeare, For All Time by Stanley Wells

Reading notes for week ending Feb 9th I'm now running two books side by side. That's unusual for me, but the books are sufficiently different, that at the moment it's not bothering me at all. The first one started was Antarctica by Gabrielle Walker. This is proving to be a very easy and enjoyable read, but because it's a hardback, it doesn't travel very well, so I've also decided that now's the time to get stuck into Les Miserables! I've intended to do so for ages, but never got around to it, but the arrival of the flim, which I'd love to go and see, has prompted me to get reading, as I really don't want to see the film before reading the book. Hopefully, I'll finish before the film leaves the cinema (hopefully!). After some umming and aaghing, I've decided to read the Norman Denny translation, as it seems ot be the best balance between readability and closeness to the original. I originally got hold of the Julia Rose translation, but it reads as awfully modern, and I just couldn't get comfortable with it. I've got it both on Kindle and in hardback, so there shouldn't be any problem with portability. Am about a hundred pages in, and it's proving a joy, if a little bit of a heavier read than, say, Dickens. With half term coming up, I hope to make some progress, but also need to find some time to read this month's book club choices: Hans Fallada's Alone in Berln, and Yellow Birds (Kevin Powers). Much as I'm wanting to read both, for the first time I'm a bit irritated that they could get in the way of something I really want to get stuck into. Just one book bought in the last week or so for reading, a Kindle Daily Deal: Bone River by Megan Chance.

Thank you all for all the lovely comments, am glad you enjoyed the review, and hope that you find that you share at least some of my enthusiasm and are not disappointed in the book! Kidsmum, I haven't, believe it or not, seen any of the TV productions. I remember watching the old 1935 film many years ago, but I my memory is limited to impressions. BTW, tomorrow (Feb 7th) is Dickens's 201st birthday!

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens ****** It's hard to imagine that I could actually add anything of value to the thousands, more like millions, of words that have been written about David Copperfield or, indeed, Charles Dickens himself. But on a purely personal note, it's probably good for the soul, so I'll plough on! I picked this book up as it was this month's book for my reading group. I did so slightly reluctantly, as I had already tried reading this fairly substantial looking tome (over 800 pages in my hardback edition) twice before in the previous few years, petering out both times. But there was also an element of my self that really looked forward to wrestling with this book, as it has been obvious from recent efforts that Dickens has grown on me substantially in the past few years. Having reached the end after a month's steady progress, including a small push over last weekend, it really proved the old adage, third time lucky, as I've come away having absolutely loved what was apparently Dickens's own favourite, and feeling almost bereft at its end! For me, the core strength of Copperfield (and of Dickens as a whole) is the huge cast of wonderful characters that strut their stuff on Dickens's stage. The book certainly has more than its fair share of larger than life 'names': Wilkins and Emily Micawber; Tommy Traddles, the Peggottys; Edward and Jane Murdstone; Uriah Heep; Mr Dick; Aunt Betsey Trotwood (now a candidate for my all-time heroine), along with minor gems like Mr Barkis, Mrs Gummidge, Rosa Dartle, and Miss Mowcher. Admittedly a few didn't really grab me - Steerforth being the most prominent exception - and I'm not a great fan of the subjects of Dickens's at times OTT sentimentalism, personified by Dora and her yappy Jip (and to some extent by Li'l Emily too), but even then she grew on me (a bit!). Dickens does seem to struggle sometimes to get beyond two dimensions with more 'normal' characters, such as Agnes; but overall, if you love great characters, Dickens has to be high on the list of favourites. I have also increasingly grown to love Dickens's use of language. I know he's generally regarded as somewhat verbose, but the more I've read of him, the less wordy he feels and the more each word seems to count! He is certainly one of the greats at painting verbal pictures (that first chapter in Bleak House!), and amply rewards those patient enough to make sure they don't miss a single word. The great Victorian writers could make the English language sing in a way that modern writers seem to struggle to achieve, and Dickens is right up there at the top of the pile. There is no doubt that the originally episodic nature of the book has an impact: there are passages of longeurs which don't really work for me, but after a while I began to realise that that is a fair reflection of life too, and after all this is a life that is being written about: David's life, like all of ours, is punctuated by periods of both heavy and little activity, and, to some extent, that is what the book itself shows. On the whole though, the story of David's life rattles on at a rollicking pace, and is as involving as any I've ever read. I spent much of the book gradually upgrading my rating: four to start with, soon to become a five, where it stayed for some considerable time. However, it steadily dawned on me as the book rolled forward to a close, that I was dreading the finish, especially once we'd got past some of the excessive melodramatics of David's wooing and early years of marriage to Dora (even she, later on, began to grow on me). I was, in fact, slowing down some of my reading, just so that I could fully appreciate what I was reading, metaphorically rolling the words round in my mind, savouring them to the full. (one scene, probably innocuous to most , really stuck in my mind, describing the Micawbers starting to learn some of the skills of farming: so funny!). Any book that does that to me deserves full marks. I know that this all probably sounds like pure gush, but I make no apology. This past month has been a growing joy in terms of reading, and has helped me realise how much I have, over the past few years, grown to love Charles Dickens's books. I'm just so glad that I've still got plenty to go at!

Reading notes for week ending Feb 2nd. At last, today I finished David Copperfield. I say, at last, but what I really mean is 'desperately sadly', as it has absorbed me for the past month, growing and growing into a real favourite. I'll save the detail for a review later this week, but if ever I needed convincing that I rate Charles Dickens as one of the all-time greats, this is it. Maybe not quite at the level of Bleak House, but not a million miles away. In particular, the cast of characters is a wonder - just so many superb participants, including a lady who rivals for my all-time favourite female in a book - Aunt Betsey Trotwood! I did try to read, in between times, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for a book group, but failed to get anything out of it, and packed in early. Maybe the contrast was too much, but the language was simple and bland, the writing clunky, and the main protagonist totally without credibility (the nine year old son of a major Nazi player who apparently doesn't know the word Fuehrer, and doesn't seem to know much else, including the fact that he's missing from the Hitler Youth. Not like any 9-year old I've ever taught) I can't understand its popularity, at least amongst adults. A few books purchased in the past week, mostly taking advantage of the last of my book tokens from Christmas and a couple of half pricers: The Real Jane Austen by Paula Byrne Georgette Heyer by Jennifer Kloester What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan Underground, Overground by Andrew Martin Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Just pay a bit more! But how many of those are there likely to be in comparison to buying up all those you don't want to read. You'll probably find it cheaper in the long term to pay a bit more for a book, but definitely read it.

I came to the book from the film, and loved the book so much more. Surely you didn't see the book as the 'alternative version' to the film? I'm not surprised Disney had trouble with Travers: the integrity and whole point of her books were completely taken to the cleaners by Disney who, having said she could have approval of the script then proceeded pretty much to ignore her, and got her banned her from the premier because of the ruckus she created. It's probably true that Disney knew what he was doing (although it would be interesting to see how a true to the book Mary Poppins would have done!), but it's a pity that he couldn't have developed something like Mary Poppins as an original, rather than ripping the heart out of somebody else's work to do so. Travers never forgave him, especially for the cartoon section (which is surely the weakest part of the flim), even though he had done right by her on the financial front (she got a decent percentage of the profits I think). Disney Studios did pretty much the same thing to Winnie-the-Pooh (only far, far worse!).

A few suggestions of classics (i.e. pre-WW2) to add to Kylie's list. These are all books I've read and think are "essential classics", even if one doesn't enjoy them (I did!), either being a generally acclaimed major classic, or being an outstanding example of its type. I've also added half a dozen modern books that to my mind should be regarded as classics. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte The Canterbury Tales- Geoffrey Chaucer The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins The Pickwick Papers- Charles Dickens Bleak House - Charles Dickens Middlemarch - George Eliot Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome Moby Dick - Herman Melville Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson Vanity Fair - William Thackeray The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy: Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope: Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf Germinal - Emile Zola And the modern half dozen: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams A Month in the Country - JL Carr The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley Of what I haven't yet read, earlier this year I put together a list of classics that I'm aiming to read over the next couple of years. These aren't necessarily the best, although some obviously are, just the next book of each author I intend to read, some of whom I have may have read other books, some none at all. Find this at http://www.bookclubf...13/#entry322703