It's been a while so here's a list.

I've decided I want to re-read one of my all time favourites from years ago. A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute. Oh the dismay when I looked over my bookshelf. It's gone :( Actually, it may have always belonged to Dad, and I just purloined it. I must get a copy.

Back in 2005, the BBC did a short series on telly called The Big Read. I found A Town Like Alice on that list after deciding to read the entire list. Thinking back, reading the whole list (something I've still not done) may have had a tiny wee bit of influence on my A-level grades. If only I'd chosen to do lit. 

I've read just under 100 up to now, since I started reading as a child but I can definitely contribute a fair few to the big read, books I wouldn't have read if not for this list. It might be a funny way of going about choosing my reading material, but it has broadened my literary horizons. And I'd like to ask for recommendations. What should I read next? (After Alice, of course). I will say though, I tried LOTR, and I got as far as Tom Bombadillo. I remember about as much of the films as well. 

And if there are any books not on the list you think I should read for one reason or another, speak up. (In an aside to my Granny Ann, I've forgotten the title you recommened a while back. D'you recall?)

I thought I'd copy the list on here for you to look at and see how many you've read. Enjoy!

Oh Yes, and the books in yellow are books I've read.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie 

101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz

151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

The following is something I wrote... this time last year actually. I remember being outraged when I realised that the sequals were being written, but now, thinking back, it's more a sign of respect. But rewriting them... ah that still riles me, and I realise this is more fitting on this blog than over at bells and genes. So here it is.

This is how I felt

It has recently come to my attention that someone has written sequels to Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers. I remember reading, and loving those six stories about Darrell Rivers and her class and the books end as she and her friends go off to university. (St. Andrews. Oh the implicit money...) So what were the six new books? Turns out they follow Felicity, her sister and their class. I can't help but think that there is something wrong there, that the next generation of children will be thinking of the 12 books in the Mallory Towers series.

I genuinly don't think that books like Enid Blyton's, or Elinor M Brent Dyer's should be changed just because it is seen as politically incorrect or it is too hard for children today to understand the grammar and language of  sixty/seventy years ago. It is too hard for children today to understand the grammar of sixty or seventy years ago because they aren't given the chance to try.

I know that some of the books I read and loved as a child were changed, even then from how they were  originally written and that saddens me too. There is always something that rings a little bit false, that jars with the spirit of the text. There is always some sub-text, some shadow of meaning that is lost in these attempts to make the book current, and nothing makes me want to stop reading the books more than that. So I have decided that I want any children I may have in the future to be able to read the books as the author wanted them to be read, not as some interfering busy-body twenty years down the line thinks they should be read. To this aim, I have decided to start collecting the old stories I used to read, as close to the original script as possible. I am fully aware that this is probably going to be a monumentally hard undertaking, because in most cases the original scripts are going to be out of print.

I have already made a start with, yes, Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and Famous Five, as well as Elinor M Brent Dyer's The Chalet School (all 60 odd of them... horrors!) because if I leave it until I do have children (being at university now, it is far to early) it will be far to late.

Eventually I shall move onto the books by people like Tamora Pierce, Diana Wynne Jones and Diane Duane, all authors I loved, and to be honest still do. I am quite happy to curl up on a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea and a stack of the books I used to read ten years ago.

Some people comfort eat. I comfort read and well, I don't want my food to be contaminated. So I will collect the books I love and keep them safe so others can read them in the spirit they were written.

:::Edit::: 
D. Duane is releasing New Millennium editions to bring her Young Wizard books into one timeline, instead of the main characters growing about 3 years in roughly 30. So You Want To Be A Wizard was only Duane's second book. (You can read about my love of these books  here ) But that's ok, because she's doing it herself (and possibly adding more content o.0). So the spirit of the books won't be lost.

Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire - Mistborn Book One

I promised this a week ago. But it's here.

And the cover art is amazing too

Brandon Sanderson's first book of The Mistborn is amazing. It had one of the most original and plausible magic systems I've ever encountered. The magic is based on different metals, with different effects. the metal 'burn' for a certain amount of time and then they are finished. You need to expend some energy to get some energy. I can't wait to buy the next two in the series. It's a good thing they're completed.

Set in the final empire - a barren, ash-filled world of overlords and underlings, with a hereditary magic passed through the noble line. The story focuses on a half peasant, half noble street thief who has inherited some 'mistborn' magic and has been using it intuitively as a good luck charm for her crew. She is found by a man in charge of a group of magical gentlemen thieves who have the cooked up the plot of the century: Overthrowing the evil overlord who has ruled for a thousand years.

This is an amazing book and the other two look as promising. Brandon Sanderson Started the trilogy after wondering about what would happen if the bad guys won, and he has pulled it off spectactularly.


::EDIT::
I thought I pressed the publish button three days ago. Turns out I didn't. Sorry!

What books mean to me - part 1

I read an awful lot. It wasn't always like that. There was a time where I refused - absolutly refused - to read anything but Enid Blyton's Famous Five. And then, one day in Eastbourne Central Library's most excellent children's section, with their seasonal displays of Sylvanian Family in the glass fronted issue desk, my dad said something along the lines of  "For goodness sake Hanna. Try something new." 

So I did. I tried Enid Blyton's Secret Seven, which I didn't like, and Enid Blyton's Adventure series, which I did like. And my dad sighed and no doubt thought he'd take the smaller victory. Wise man that he is. I doubt he even remembers that Saturday now.

That was the start though. I tried those, someone introduced me to Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons, and the rest of the books in that series, Noel Streatfeild, Jenny Oldfield's horse stories and more. I started reading at every spare moment I had, and my dad, and my uncle did - do - the same.

And then one day I ran out of stuff to read whilst visiting my uncle, and he gave me Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong, and I loved it. And I realised how much I loved the genre. And I still do. I consumed everything else of hers that I could get my hands on. After that I moved onto people McCaffrey had collaborated with. Mercedes Lackey, Jodie Lynn Nye, Elizabeth Moon and that moved me on to people like David Webber, Diane Duane...

I would say that now, about 60% - 80% of the books I read are science fiction or fantasy. There are a lot of other writers I also read, in a lot of other genres. I have books I read because the are a good story. They're well written and I engage with the characters so I'll read them.

I started this post with the intention of talking about what the books mean to me, why I read and have read. This post would be better entitled what I read and how I go there. I'll have to write another post on what I was actually going to write.