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I have read and own several Nora Roberts novels, however, it is her novella 'Lawless' that holds my greatest affection. One might say that it is one of my literary guilty pleasures. In more ways than one the story is the stereotypical bad boy is shoved the right way by sassy good girl, but I don't care...a girl has to sigh and swoon over a fictional character who is not Jane Austen's Mr Darcy every once in a while, and I'm quite content for it to be Jake Redman.

Several of the poems that members have already posted are numbered amongst my favourites. My current poetical bent leans to Rainer Maria Rilke, and more particularly his poem, You, Darkness. You, Darkness. You darkness, that I come from, I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world, for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone, and then no one outside learns of you. But the darkness pulls in everything: shapes and fires, animals and myself, how easily it gathers them!- powers and people- and it is possible a great energy is moving near me. I have faith in nights.

No, no, I'm old school, it is the OT (original trilogy) all the way for me in regards to the films, and the OT and post OT EU(expanded universe) as far as the novels are concerned.

A great read! I'm looking forward to the advent of The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Finally finished Bleak House. Yay! And now I have added Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods to my current reads. I've read many other of Bryson's books, and finding this one just as irreverently funny.

Although in essence dangerous realms, Middle Earth and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter have much to recommend them; man, elf, wizard, and witch standing side by side fighting with honour, integrity, loyalty, and courage beyond belief against malevolent forces. And many a magical thing to set even the hardest of fantasy fanboys' heart aflutter. However, my heart is lost to another place. A place far, far away. A place that encompasses worlds that are consistently plagued by violence, shoddy politics, nefarious alien overlords, smugglers, a force wielding ancient monastic peacekeeping organisation, cloned soldiers who need more rigorous blaster training in order to hit what they aim at, nifty X-wings and speeder bikes, a tall, dark, heavy breathing dude....and a decaying Emperor in a Death Star. Yep (!), it would be the Star Wars universe for me.

Great! A book forum that also comes complete with cricket fans...there truly is a slice of heaven on Earth. Ought to be mighty interesting during the next Ashes series...

My 'eagerly anticipating hitting the big screen' movies are The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit. Ooh! Ooh! I almost forgot Prometheus! In space no one can hear you scream.

Skyline - There are no words to describe the lameness of this flick. I want my 94 minutes of life back, and some steel wool to scrub every last vestige of this film from my mind.

Hello, Kylie. Your welcome is very much appreciated, thank you. I'm currently located in a place that defies the upper echelons of theoretical physicists and their steadfast assertions that it is an impossibility for time to stand still, lol. The picturesque, but often frigid, and still thoroughly entrenched in the mid-1800's island state of Tasmania. *waves* Thank you for the warm welcome, and hello to you, Ben. Pleased to meet you, frankie. Thank you for your generous welcome. I thought the avatar suited my...err...quirky nature. lol Always pleased to meet a fellow lurker! Hello to you, Andie P, and thank you for the welcome. Yes! I was having a peek at some of the reading lists of members have posted, and thought I should set myself the task of compiling and posted my own list. Hello! Appreciation is mine that you took the time to welcome me here, chesilbeach, thank you. Thank you everyone. I think I'm going to be right at home here.

Three walls of my study are lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, it is here where I house the majority of my book collection. I periodically rummage through my books, and those that have not been reread in some time (and are not likely to be) are relegated to archive boxes stacked in a built-in robe in a spare room. My 'currently reading' pile are kept in my bedside drawer...for easy bedtime reading access, of course. As is the short list of my TBRs. The left corner of my desk in my study is home to my research and study books. The stack appears to be growing ever higher; breeding like rabbits methinks.

I do love me some Gaiman! The Graveyard Book, classified as a children's novel it may well be, I must own that it is a favourite of mine amongst Gaiman's stories. Last evening I finished reading the The Graveyard Book (again!) to my son. He has a visual impairment and a subsequent severe physical disability which restricts his ability to access Braille to...well...nil, and as my son is a lover of literature books need to be physically read to him. I've lost count how many times, by his urging, I have read this book to my son. He does also have the Graveyard Book in audio form, however, he prefers the interaction that comes from having someone read to him, and the opportunity it allows him to question and discuss points throughout the story. My son has chosen another Gaiman as his next book, American Gods.

It was a mere fortnight ago on the recommendation of a friend that I read my first Jodi Picoult book. Nineteen Minutes. I was pleasantly surprised. I found the premise of the book was relevant in today's uncertain and wavering societal climate, and therefore thought provoking. I really enjoyed the author's writing style; emotive whilst having a clarity and credibility to harnessed thoughts/ideas/plot. I definitely will be turning my eyes to more of Jodi Picoult's books in the future. Recommendations of which books will be gratefully received.

Hello! I inadvertently stumbled across the forums whilst web sur...*clears throat*...whilst diligently researching...*nods*..yeah that's it, researching. I thought I'd take a moment or two to take a peek around...until I found with each passing day a 'moment or two' had grown into a time period of more significance. Finally that thought that had been nagging in the back of my mind, the thought that I tried so desperately hard to bury in the deepest depth of my cerebrum came bursting forth with a crystalline realisation...I'm a lurker (!). I thought it past due when I should stop my shameful lurking ways, come out of the woodwork and register, post a few random vowels and consonants interspersed with a few white spaces, and ultimately come here where I can publicly acknowledge my past bad habit and start the process of reformation by firstly making my presence known and secondly continue on participating. On a more serious note--I am impressed with the conversation here; great posts from a variety of posters and a wide range of discussion points. A truly delightful forum. I am a voracious reader, and have an eclectic taste in literature; fiction, non-fiction, classics, science fiction, thrillers, fantasy etc. Eagerness is mine to broaden my literary horizons, and have already noted down several titles (that have come recommended through the enthusiastic words of fellow posters) during my exploration of the forum. Looking forward to the discussions and getting to know everyone.

Old enough to remember the days before the internet, colour TV, microwaves, CDs, DVDs, mobile/cell phones, to have answered the unflattering query from my children when they were young "What were the dinosaurs like?", and to wonder whether those momentary lapses of memory could be related to the onset of Alzheimer's. But, young enough to remember my wild glory days and deny their existence when chastising my kids for their indiscretions that come too close to those aforementioned days. I be 44.

Australia. Born, bred, and residing. I'm currently living in the middle of nowhere...where the livestock outnumber the human population.

I loved that show! On my wishlist would be... The Pretender - The last movie 'Island of the Haunted' did nothing other than raise more (so far unanswered) questions. Gah! China Beach Deadwood FIREFLY - please, please, please!

Keep the Streets Empty for Me - Fever Ray. Fever Ray is better known as Karin Dreijer Andersson; one half of the duo The Knife.

I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the books on the list I have read. Though, I must own that many of them were read simply because they were required reading at some time or other during my educational years. The bolded titles are the books I have read: 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 1984 - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen- 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens- 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez- 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac- 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Inferno - Dante 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo Total = 69 One book on the list that I haven't read, but would very much like to is Birdsong by Sebastian Faulk. I've read some very enthusiastic and positive reviews...each subsequent review of Birdsong I read only further cements my wish to read the book. A book for my 'To read' list.

I'm currently on a Dr. Kay Scarpetta and Detective Pete Marino bent. Compliments of author Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series.

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee 2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 3. And it is an even split between Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Stephanie Meyer. I was given Twilight as a present, and as appreciative as I am of the thoughtfulness and generosity shown to me by someone taking the time to shop, purchase, wrap, and present the gift...well, being burnt at the stake might have been a less torturous altrenative to reading Twilight. The most pointlessly verbose book I have ever had the displeasure of reading; pages and pages of description that added nothing to the story. I know they say "never say never", but with utter certainty I can honestly say I shall never pick up (or read! ) another Stephanie Meyer book.

It is usual for me to have two or three books on the go at any one time (research books aside). Any more than that and I think I would begin to have information retention issues!

I'm in the home stretch with my reread of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Currently situated in the midst of chapter 55. I had promised myself that I would dot my reading list with revisits to some of my past 'The Classics' reads, but I must own that it has been a trial getting through Bleak House this time around.

"LONDON." (Micaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall.) Bleak House by Charles Dickens