Hayley

I love that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is on there, I read that book SO many times at primary school, it had my favourite illustrations! It's a good list, it has a lot of books I've either read or want to read, and I'll definitely have a look at the ones I haven't heard of so thanks Janet

I see what you mean, but I also remember being about 11 and being really annoyed that they wouldn't let me take books out from the adult section in the library (although I did just used to get my older sister to come with me and use her card). I think maybe just age guidance, for example a warning on the back to say it uses bad language or contains violence, would be good (I think this is what you meant anyway ian). But I don't think they should be restricted in any way either. If an 11 year old picked up a book of Shakespeare and was told they couldn't buy it because it had swearing in, I'd find it pretty ridiculous.

I escape to the bathroom when I'm stressed too, sometimes I actually do it unconsciously and wonder for a second what I went in there for I think it depends on what kind of stressed I am how I deal with it... If I'm trying to relax at night but feeling stressed I like having a hot shower. If it's the kind of stressed where I have loads of work and feel a bit like I don't know what to do, I like to make a mental (or physical) list off the individual things that need to be done (makes it seem like I'm making more progress somehow). Or if I haven't already done it, going through my calender and writing in all my deadlines to help put it in better perspective. Sometimes I get a sort of stressed where I feel really restless (usually when I've been concentrating on work for a long time) and (weirdly) I usually clean. Just things I don't have to actually think about, like washing up or wiping worktops or cleaning the shower. That way I don't feel guilty about stopping work, because I'm still doing useful things, but my brain gets a break! Hope you're feeling less stressed soon Athena

I loved the book so much more than the film! The book came across so much less cheesy and as far as I can remember they completely missed out the proper ending from the film! I think I'd agree with everyone on the later Harry Potter films though, after The Order of the Phoenix the books just didn't seem as good, but I did like the films.

I'm so incredibly sad that this is only on iPad and apparently not compatible with iPhone! Although, maybe it's for the best, since I am trying to save money at the moment... Hoping that in a few months they might create a version for iPhone, and hopefully I will be able to afford it!

If you're a student you can use studentbeans.com, I don't have an e-reader but they send you an email occasionally telling you the best deals on everything from e-books to clothes and restaurants. I don't think you can use it if your not a student, so I'm sorry if your not and that was useless I think it would be a good idea if we had a thread on the forum where we can tell each other about good book/ e-book deals we come across, do we already have something like that?

I thought The Remains of the Day was slow to start with too, actually I never finished it, but it seems to have a lot of brilliant reviews so I'll be interested to see what you think, I can decide if it's worth trying again then

I thought Northanger Abbey was easy to read, not too long either

That is a LONG reading list! Some very good books on it though, should be fun trying to get through it

Yeah The Metamorphosis is definitely worth a try, but be prepared to be confused Thanks Ben, I did have a good first semester, if a little bit hectic towards the end, I hope you did too I wouldn't say not to read In Cold Blood, it is at least an interesting experience to read it. I'm very sure that you'll see what I mean about the uncomfortable feeling it creates when you start it though. Ok so here's another... getting there slowly Nella Larson - Quicksand and Passing I've only included Quicksand and Passing because these are the only two stories I read from the collection, although they are the main ones. I really enjoyed these short stories, particularly Passing. At a basic level, they are stories which deal with issues of race in the Harlem renaissance era, it's the writing which makes them special. Both are very tragic, and beautifully, emotionally written, you really start to feel sympathetic to the main characters as they struggle against issues which seem completely out of their control. At the same time though, you don't necessarily like them as people, which I think is particularly clever of Larson I would definitely recommend, especially as they are such quick reads!

Ok, I haven't posted in this for so long I actually couldn't find it haha! I'm really not very good at this... I do have an excuse, I've had an extremely busy term, and to be honest, it's not much less busy now in the Christmas holiday! There are some books on the list which I only read part of and even if I do get round to reading them it won't be soon, so I'll give a short explanation here... As I Lay Dying: This one I didn't finish mainly because I just didn't have time with assignment deadlines, and it was taking a long time to read as the narrative is very choppy and confusing. Quirky is probably the word for this book, it has meaning behind it, but it also has an entire chapter of 5 words 'my mother is a fish'. (just in case, I'll point out that that isn't a spoiler. Nobody turns into a fish). I can see what others would enjoy in it, but it just wasn't my kind of book. Decline and Fall: I actually did want to read this and probably will keep it to read in the future, it was literally a case of running out of time. It does actually seem like it could be quite funny. In Cold Blood: This was quite a long book, and I would have struggled to read it all in time, but to be honest I just really didn't like it. It is a true story of a mass murder in America, but written in a fictional style so obviously with made up or embellished scenes. It just made me feel very uncomfortable reading it. Not only is it a completely different experience reading a description of somebody being murdered when you know it really happened, there are also things like a girls diary in there, which I felt probably shouldn't have been published in the first place. It also made me feel quite angry that the author (who developed a close, if not romantic, relationship with one of the murderers when he was interviewing them for the book) tries to create sympathy for the murderers, to the point where it feels he is trying to justify what they did. I won't be finishing this one! Total Recall: I really wanted to read this one, but it was just too long and I didn't get time. It is an interesting combination of a modern detective story, including business scams and murder, with the war crimes of the holocaust. The main character is a brilliant example of a strong female detective. I think a lot of the time in books and film, writers are afraid to give their strong female characters feminine traits, as though this will make them seem weak, and that's not the case in this book. V.I (the detective) is smart, strong and is allowed to worry about what she's going to wear occasionally. This just makes it feel much more relatable, she seems far more like she could be a real person. I will try to finish this one in the future.

'The Purloined Letter' by Edgar Allan Poe has no murder in it (short story) In The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins there are a couple of murders but the investigation isn't about them, it's about a theft, if that counts. And Mark Twain's 'The Stolen White Elephant' (also a short story) isn't about murder, but it's also technically a parody of detective fiction so I don't know if that counts either...

I think I would say it is fair to call Poe the father of detective fiction, there's quite a lot of similarities between his Dupin stories and some of our best loved detective fiction, like Sherlock Holmes. I do agree with bree though, Collins produced the first real English detective novel, and it's very good

Could it be Beatrix Potter's 'The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin'? That has an owl and squirrel as the central characters, the squirrels go to owl island to collect nuts as far as I can remember, if that helps

I wasn't sure how I felt when I read this article either. In a way I'm happy that Discworld will continue after Terry Pratchett is unable to write, because I love all the books and would be so sad to see the end of them. But then, like you said Raven, we don't really know anything about Rhianna Pratchett's writing, and I'd hate to think the Discworld series would become something different once she starts writing them. But I don't think Terry Pratchett would have even suggested the idea if he wasn't sure his daughter could carry on the series in a way he would have done, so I'm pretty hopeful for them. Also the new Tomb Raider storyline does look really good

(edited: I found the thread ) Has anybody seen the new Bioshock trailer? I'm really looking forward to it, hopefully it wont be disappointing. On the other hand, there's just been the new Asassins Creed trailer, and I'm really not sure about that. Having played all the other games, I just don't see how they're going to get the same atmosphere in a pretty modern setting. Already in the older trailer, they showed the hero swinging from trees instead of rooftops, and his arms just looked like they were going straight through the branches. Hopefully they've fixed this now, but I'm not so sure. In one of the developer blogs, they said that the settings fans suggested were boring. I thought this was a pretty stupid thing to say, since the fans are the ones that are going to be buying and playing the game! Best trailer I think I've seen so far is Tomb Raider, (sorry if I already mentioned this, I don't think I did) the very good looking story line is written by Terry Pratchetts daughter, Rhianna Pratchett

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf I mentioned in another part of the forum (can't remember where now...) that I found this book a little difficult to get on with. The structure is a little unusual for a start. The story swaps between various characters and scenes in a sort of snapshot style, which can get a little confusing, as there's sometimes nothing particular to define the change, so I often found myself having to go back a page to remember who was being talked about. There was also very little punctuation, which made it difficult to work out the meaning of some of the sentences without really studying them. The story itself was good, really quite emotional and an honest take on the state of society in England during the first world war. Personally though I found one persons story very interesting, while the other was quite boring. It's definitely not one of my favourite books, by quite a long way. I don't think it's a bad book by any means, I think it's very clever, written in a very unique way and a good social commentary. I just think it may be an acquired taste... like mustard

Sorry for the delay, I've been much busier for the start of term than I was expecting! It's set in the early twentieth century, I don't think it gives any specific dates but there's reference to real events you can work out the time frame from. I don't recall there being anything particularly to do with the potato famine though, there's more of a hint towards political unrest and the divide between Catholics and Protestants. I agree that it's a bit strange we we aren't taught about the potato famine at school too now you mention it! What book is it you're reading? I'll just make a quick note in general on the poetry I mentioned above, it would be too long and not very interesting to go through them all. I have to admit I am really not a fan of modernist poetry. By the time I got to the line in Gertrude Steins 'Tender Buttons' which said "sugar is not a vegetable" I was ready to rip it up (all 63 pages of it) and have a good rant. I think it's because I like to get into a poem or a book and be able to really think about it, analyse it and work it out; but these types of poems literally have no meaning, or have unlimited meanings (which amounts to the same thing) and I just don't entirely see the point of reading a series of random sentences. This was my least favourite though, my favourite was probably Hardy's The Darkling Thrush, which I'm happy to say did make sense, had some beautiful imagery and a very pretty, thought provoking ending. I promise to come back later and actually review the rest of the books! And thanks for reading and commenting, it does give me much more motivation to keep up the reviews

I read this book recently and I would definitely agree with your description of 'bizarre brilliance'. Considering the extremely odd events of the story, it's so well written that you still feel yourself connecting emotionally with the characters, and really feeling sympathetic towards Gregor. I read an interpretation somewhere (I can't remember where now) which I thought was interesting, that when Gregor transforms he actually has wings, but he just never realises it. I think this would give an entirely new meaning to the story, but at the same time I don't think there's really any solid evidence to prove it.

Unless it's old enough to be out of copyright and you can find the passage online to paste into a word document or something, I also think taking a picture of it is the quickest way. But at least having to copy it out by hand will make you remember your favourite parts better