The Chronicles of Narnia by Robert Sabuda

I have to confess that I'm not a huge fan of the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm sure I read them as a child but it didn't register with me as much as other books I'd read. I tried them again as an adult and skimmed through The Magician's Nephew and read most of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The rest I've left unfinished. Maybe when my boys are older, we'll read them together and I'll discover some of its magic whilst looking at the books through their eyes. We'll see.



For now, I'm going to stick with this absolutely beautiful book of pop-ups by my favourite 'paper engineer' Robert Sabuda. In this book, each of the books in the series has it's own pop-up including a summary of the book and each page has some incredibly interesting special effects, including many moving pop-ups.



Even though the summaries of each book is quite small, the detail of the pop-ups make me feel like I should really read the books, that in some way I'm missing out. I'm intrigued to know more about the mouse Reepicheep.



What struck me the most about this book aside from the amazing pop-ups is the colour that is used. Such brilliant blues and greens, it's very inviting. Just the cover itself shouts out to me 'open me' and makes me want to stroke the book. I don't often find myself being so attracted to a book, especially a book which is about a series of books that I don't love, but this book is just so pretty.



Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more Robert Sabuda books on Saturdays...

Other books include The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Love Is...

-spending your entire Sunday preparing dinners in advance so that even though I spend my days at home, I only have to throw the cottage pie in the oven for 20 minutes or warm up some yummy vegetable curry and rice. It takes all the stress out of dinner-time with two small children.

-listening to me rant for longer than I should have done about how annoying it is to wash the dishes only to find that the cutlery drainer is CRAM PACKED and even though that's totally my fault and I'm the reason that it never gets emptied, love is you emptying that damned cutlery drainer everytime you went into the kitchen ALL WEEK.

-convincing me to go for a run and seeing through my terrible excuses and then letting me go first so that I don't eat the lovely dinner (that you made earlier in the week) too late in the evening.

-coming home early from work so that you can drive me an hour out of the way, drop me off to my first tutorial, hang around for two hours and then drive me home all so I wouldn't have to take the train in the dark.

If I don't say it enough: thank you, N.

Library Loot 3

1. Tales of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
2. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
3. Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay

Just three books from the library this week. I still have The Namesake, Fingersmith and What I Loved out and unread and I thought I needed to balance the more serious, literary titles with some children's books. I heard that Studio Ghibli have done an adaptation of Tales of Earthsea and that gives me a good excuse to read something by Ursula Le Guin. I've always wanted to try out something of hers and now I finally have a good excuse. Not that I really needed one, it just gives me a push in the right direction. The Judy Blume is one I'm sure I've read before, but just to be sure, I picked it up. Plus, Lost has started again and unless I dreamt it (which is possible) I remember Sawyer was reading it at some point. That's reason enough to read a book, isn't it? :) Saffy's Angel, I believe? was recommended to me by Kate (was it you Kate?) and I finally found it in the library.

How about you? Find more Library Looters over at Out of the Blue.

Word of the Year

con⋅fi⋅dence

/ˈkɒnfɪdəns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation –noun

1.	full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing: We have every confidence in their ability to succeed.

2.	belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities; self-confidence; self-reliance; assurance: His lack of confidence defeated him.

I think my word of the year is confidence. I've been thinking a lot about it recently. I never had much of it until recently. I had little trust in myself, in my own abilities. When I was younger, my dad tried everything to boost my self-confidence. He enrolled me in sports, encouraged me to try out for the school plays, I was a peer counsellor in middle school. Nothing seemed to work. (I wasn't very good at team sports, I had no talent for acting and I didn't counsel anyone in an entire year.) I've always been quite shy, hardly likely to speak up for myself.

And this lack of self-confidence has just continued to grow and transform into this monstrous thing that's threated to take over my entire life. And it has to stop. For me, for my children. And somehow, in small little ways, it has. I'm unable to recognise the person I'm becoming. I start conversations with other mothers at toddler group and don't stumble over my words. I phone people I know without rehearsing the conversation in my head beforehand.

And here's the big one. At my first tutorial for my university course this week, I didn't have a panic attack when I walked in and I introduced myself straightaway. I spoke in front of everyone without digging my fingernails into my palms out of nervousness. I didn't turn bright red or forget my words. When it came time to break into groups and discuss our hopes and fears for the course, I became the unofficial team leader and volunteered to go first. I'm amazed. Who am I?

I think everything is connected. The running that I'm doing (nearly three miles a day!), the driving, this blog and all of your lovely comments, everything is helping. Every little thing is making me feel more confident and instead of being afraid of what that means, I feel excited. Energised. What new thing can I accomplish next? I feel like a door and a window has been opened and it's up to me to decide what great things happen next.

Confidence, fear and what 2009 might bring*

*and no, I hope it doesn't bring a trip to a police station, you know, in cuffs or anything.

Five years ago I passed the test for my driver's license. Five years ago. And I haven't done anything with it until recently. Off and on since we moved to Wokingham I've tried to be more confident in my abilities and for the last two years I've made excuses and put it off. I was happy enough taking the bus and walking. We live on a hill and even with the struggle it is to push a double buggy up such a steep incline most days didn't stop me from doing more driving. I was always too afraid. To afraid to hold that responsibility.

And I think what 2009 will be all about is having more confidence in my own abilities and letting go of some of my fear. Because I am driving and I feel great about it. I feel silly now that it's taken me this long. Holding onto this fear has been holding me back, it's been holding my boys back. Look at Elliot's face in this picture. The day I drove him to the local police station was the best day ever for him. And I wouldn't have been able to do that without driving. He was able to sit in the police car and watch the flashing blue lights. He's asked me every day since then to go back to the police station to see 'police woman Julie' Next week we might drive to the fire station.. or somewhere else just as cool. Because we can. It's possible.

Happy 3rd birthday, Fluttering Butterflies!

Today marks the third anniversary for my little blog! Happy blogiversary to me!

I started this blog three years ago, just a few months after my oldest son Elliot was born. I needed some .. proof, let's say, that I wasn't just a mother. That my whole life, including all my thoughts and feelings, hadn't shifted into motherhood and got lost there.

I wanted to prove that I was still interested in books and movies and television. I still needed to work through my own issues with motherhood and leaving America. Today, this blog has transformed into something I wouldn't have even imagined three years ago.

It's been difficult to find my place with this blog. I write about my children, but I'm not a mommy blogger. I write about the books I read, but in no way am I a book blogger. I live in another country from the one I was born, but I wouldn't consider myself an expat blogger. I think that having no specific audience to write for, I've struggled. But at least it hasn't been in vain.

According to Google Reader, I have 25 subscribers (eep! I just checked and it's since jumped to *39* subscribers!) and write 5.8 posts a week. 17 people have followed me on Blogger. At one point in my life, I might not have been happy with those modest figures, especially compared to other websites I visit. But I am happy. I get a steady stream of comments, I'm involving myself in interesting conversations with good people, I feel part of a community. So thank you all. For making me feel welcome, for the comments, for including me.


Star commenters in order of commenter awesomeness! (80-150 comments):

1. ShadowFalcon
2. Tasha
3. Misty
4. Becca
5. Atasha
6. Emmie
7. Christie O.

Honourable Mentions (30-79 comments):

1. Kate
1. Mamacita Tina
2. Ms Mac
3. Lisa
3. Damselfly
4. PD & M
5. Keris
6. Diana - Teacher Mom
7. Literary Feline

Guardian's 1000 Books List

I've seen this around and I have nothing of interest to write about today. It's the Guardian's list of 1000 books to be read. I've put the titles I've read in bold. What do you think of the list? How many have you read? Do you put much interest in these types of lists or are they just arbitrary and only interesting for a small period of time? Which category have you read more of?


Comedy

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Money by Martin Amis
The Information by Martin Amis
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Queen Lucia by EF Benson
The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
Illywhacker by Peter Carey
A Season in Sinji by JL Carr
The Harpole Report by JL Carr
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Just William by Richmal Crompton
The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot
A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
Cheese by Willem Elsschot
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert
Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
The Polygots by William Gerhardie
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Brewster's Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)
Squire Haggard's Journal by Michael Green
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson
Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage
Changing Places by David Lodge
Nice Work by David Lodge
The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
England, Their England by AG Macdonell
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen
Cakes and Ale - Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Puckoon by Spike Milligan
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
Charade by John Mortimer
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
La Disparition by Georges Perec
Les Revenentes by Georges Perec
La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec
My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
The Westminster Alice by Saki
The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
Hurrah for St Trinian's by Ronald Searle
Great Apes by Will Self
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed
Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons
Moo by Jane Smiley
Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
White Man Falling by Mike Stocks
Handley Cross by RS Surtees
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
Tono Bungay by HG Wells
Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson
Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse
Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse
Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse

Crime

The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Trent's Last Case by EC Bentley
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary E Braddon
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Greenmantle by John Buchan
The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
Double Indemnity by James M Cain
True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin
Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin
A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin
Vendetta by Michael Dibdin
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Crime of Father Amado by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
LA Confidential by James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Third Man by Graham Greene
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The King of Torts by John Grisham
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill
A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
Silence of the Grave by Arnadur Indridason
Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes
Cover Her Face by PD James
A Taste for Death by PD James
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman
Misery by Stephen King
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim
The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent by E Phillips Oppenheim
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky
Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
Nineteen Seventy Seven by David Peace
The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos
Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
Lush Life by Richard Price
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
V by Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
The Hanging Gardens by Ian Rankin
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
Dissolution by CJ Sansom
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Le Sayers
The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon
The Blue Room by Georges Simenon
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
A Fatal inversion by Barbara Vine
King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine
The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Native Son by Richard Wright
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

Family and self

The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Epileptic by David B
Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
G by John Berger
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
Evelina by Fanny Burney
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
The Outsider by Albert Camus
Wise Children by Angela Carter
The Professor's House by Willa Cather
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Quarantine by Jim Crace
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
Roxana by Daniel Defoe
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Howards End by EM Forster
Spies by Michael Frayn
Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Shrimp and the Anemone by LP Hartley
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Washington Square by Henry James
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
The Unfortunates by BS Johnson
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
Memet my Hawk by Yasar Kemal
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
Martin Eden by Jack London
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Chateau by William Maxwell
The Rector's Daughter by FM Mayor
The Ordeal of Richard Feverek by George Meredith
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kezaburo Oe
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The Good Companions by JB Priestley
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
A Married Man by Piers Paul Read
Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Unless by Carol Shields
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
Death in Summer by William Trevor
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Peace in War by Miguel de Unamuno
The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smarest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Frost in May by Antonia White
The Tree of Man by Patrick White
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
I'll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Love

Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier
Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani
Love for Lydia by HE Bates
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Look At Me by Anita Brookner
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Possession by AS Byatt
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
My Antonia by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Claudine a l'ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
A Room with a View by EM Forster
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Living by Henry Green
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
The Go-Between by LP Hartley
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by WH Hudson
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Beauty and Saddness by Yasunari Kawabata
The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence
The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
Women in Love by DH Lawrence
The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Zami by Audre Lorde
Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
The Egoist by George Meredith
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male by Vladimir Nabokov
The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan
Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
Light Years by James Salter
A Sport and a Passtime by James Salter
The Reader by Benhardq Schlink
The Reluctant Orphan by Aara Seale
Love Story by Eric Segal
Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Waterland by Graham Swift
Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
East Lynne by Ellen Wood
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Science fiction and fantasy

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
The Drowned World by JG Ballard
Crash by JG Ballard
Millennium People by JG Ballard
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
Vathek by William Beckford
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Influence by Ramsey Campbell
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
The Magus by John Fowles
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Red Shift by Alan Garner
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Light by M John Harrison
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein
Dune by Frank L Herbert
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Children of Men by PD James
After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Shining by Stephen King
The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ascent by Jed Mercurio
The Scar by China Mieville
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Mother London by Michael Moorcock
News from Nowhere by William Morris
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Vurt by Jeff Noon
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
Air by Geoff Ryman
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Blindness by Jose Saramago
How the Dead Live by Will Self
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Insult by Rupert Thomson
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Affinity by Sarah Waters
The Time Machine by HG Wells
The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
The Sword in the Stone by TH White
The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

State of the nation

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
London Fields by Martin Amis
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Room at the Top by John Braine
A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
The Plague by Albert Camus
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Underworld by Don DeLillo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
USA by John Dos Passos
Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
Independence Day by Richard Ford
A Passage to India by EM Forster
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
The Odd Women by George Gissing
New Grub Street by George Gissing
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Lanark by Alastair Gray
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare
How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman
The Leopard by Giuseppi di Lampedusa
A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
Passing by Nella Larsen
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Amongst Women by John McGahern
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Of Love & Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia
A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
McTeague by Frank Norris
Personality by Andrew O'Hagan
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Ragazzi Pier by Paolo Pasolini
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese
GB84 by David Peace
Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Shame by Salman Rushdie
To Each his Own by Leonardo Sciascia
Staying On by Paul Scott
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon
God's Bit of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
Richshaw Boy by Lao She
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovtich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
This Sporting Life by David Storey
The Red Room by August Stringberg
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Couples by John Updike
Z by Vassilis Vassilikos
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Germinal by Emile Zola
La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola

War and travel

Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
Regeneration by Pat Barker
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Bomber by Len Deighton
Deliverance by James Dickey
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
South Wind by Norman Douglas
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake
The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
The African Queen by CS Forester
The Ship by CS Forester
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Beach by Alex Garland
To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding
Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage
King Solomon's Mines by H Rider Haggard
She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Covenant with Death by John Harris
Enigma by Robert Harris
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
From Here to Eternity by James Jones
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
Confederates by Thomas Keneally
Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
Day by AL Kennedy
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
La Condition Humaine by Andre Malraux
Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat
Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
History by Elsa Morante
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell
The Soldier's Art by Anthony Powell
The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge
Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge
The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Sacaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
The Hunters by James Salter
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
Austerlitz by WG Sebald
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
Williwaw by Gore Vidal
Candide by Voltaire
Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh
The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall
Voss by Patrick White
The Virginian by Owen Wister
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Debacle by Emile Zola

Excuses

I had a great week. Did I mention that I've started running in preparation for that 10k I'm doing this year? I started a few days after the New Year. It went slowly for awhile, but I'm now able to run about 2 miles a day and not feel like I'm going to die. It may not sound like much to you, but for me it's huge. I'd taken a break last week and then decided to get back to it.

And that first run that I did was the deciding factor. The run that would decide if I'd keep going or fall back into a slump. I could feel it happening. I got on the treadmill, warmed up a bit, and started running. It got to about 8 minutes before I felt the excuses coming. I thought to myself 'it's my first run in awhile, I don't have to push myself too much, just run a bit and at least I'll have done some exercise, I went to the dentist this morning, my mouth is hurting, that's reason enough to stop now, I feel a stitch coming on, better not push it too much' and so on.

At today, for the first time it feels like, I saw through the excuses. It wasn't about my dental pain or about a stitch. It wasn't even about running, I don't think. Some part of me is afraid of what it feels like to accomplish something. To work hard for something and know that I did it myself. It's that little voice in my head telling me that I'll never do it, give up now before I waste my time, so many negative thoughts that I have been telling myself again and again, day after day for as long as I can remember.

And it was hard, but I managed to run right through my excuses. I ran harder and longer than I have before. I tried to distract myself with plans for the future. It was the best run ever. I worked out how old my kids will be when I'm 40 and the holidays I'd like to take them on. I sang songs to myself, wrote bits of this blog post in my head and thought of all the improvements I'd like to do to our house. And the most persistent thought that 'ran' through my head?

I can and I will.

My Wizard of Oz collection

Here's my other collection that I forgot I had until a few weeks ago when I pulled out all my donkeys. N bought them for my birthday years ago. I always wanted to make little stands for them and display them somewhere. If only I had enough space in my house! Imagine a house big enough for all of my books and donkeys and weird Wizard of Oz dolls and the kids' toys and everything!

Looking at these Wizard of Oz dolls makes me feel like watching the movie, or at least listening to the Soundtrack again...

Do you have a favourite Wizard of Oz character?


Judy Garland Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Funny blooper videos are here

Library Loot 2

1. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. Airhead by Meg Cabot
4. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
5. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
6. Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Also, I still have Slam by Nick Hornby checked out from the library and I picked up Smoke and Ashes by Neil Gaiman from a charity shop. Nothing for Elliot from the library this week as I had to rush off to another appointment.

1. I recently watched the Studio Ghibli film adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle and felt like reading the book. I'd checked it out once before without any success.

2. Last year I read Unaccustomed Earth as well as Interpreter of Maladies and quite enjoyed them so wanted to read The Namesake and see how Lahiri does with a full-length novel.

3. I heart Meg Cabot.

4. After reading Affinity others had said her other novel set in Victorian times, Fingersmith was fantastic. Seems a bit long for me though, I'm ot sure.

5. A 1001 Book. Haven't heard much about it, picked it up on a whim. The dedication (which I rarely read, in this case 'For Paul Auster' or something similar) was the deciding factor.

6. I'm sure I read a review of this recently. Can't remember where I read it though! Sorry to whichever blog it was!

As for the Neil Gaiman book. I've been finding it really difficult to locate his books short of going into a bookstore and buying them. My local library has nothing, no one on ReadItSwapIt, the book swap website I use, wants to swap their Neil Gaiman books for mine and five charity shops later I have the one book. At least it's a small success.

I'm still reading Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek but have also picked up Airhead to read first.

Three years, One Month and Twenty Odd Days, or 'Why can't she take a hint?!'

I've mentioned it ten zillion times already and no one seems to be impressed by it at all, but I've taken photos of both of my sons every day since they were born. I've tried to capture everything, the good days, the bad days. Oldest and then Littlest, sleeping, crying, laughing, playing with their favourite toys, with their friends, eating, learning new things.

I like to look at the photos and remember that for a few weeks, Littlest's favourite toy was a blue spaceman that he'd clutch for dear life and that Oldest would concentrate really hard when he was playing with his wooden train set. I've always believed it was the details, the small over-looked things that when you add them all is what makes a life special.

I've enjoyed my photos-a-day. I have. But it's time I took a hint, really. After days and days of photos like the above, where Oldest covers his face, turns away or hides. When everytime I pull the camera out he yells 'NO PHOTOS MOMMY, NO PHOTOS' So for his sanity, I will stop. Photos every day will continue until Littlest hides or covers his face (may that be years from now), but I will no longer include Oldest in this particular brand of parent-child torture.

It won't feel the same.

Donkey Sanctuary, Part Two: Orphan edition

Following this post, I thought I'd show you the other donkeys in the house. The ones who currently do not have their own specific space like the other Eeyores, and must spend their days languishing in the bathroom of all places. Poor, poor donkeys.

Tlingit Creation stories

I love creation stories. There's something so poetic and magical about them. I have books of these types of stories from different countries and I love the similarities and differences between them. My favourites? Tlingit creation stories. I don't know much about my own personal heritage apart from what I've read in books, but it's a part of who I am. (for new readers, I am half Tlingit. My mother is 100% Tlingit and was born and raised in Southeast Alaska) Here are a few creation stories that I have known since childhood:

Raven Creates Fish.

One day, Raven called the salmon together to choose their rivers. King Salmon said, 'I will travel up the long, large rivers to the clear waters, where I will spawn.' Dog Salmon was next. 'I, too, want the larger rivers.' he said, 'but if they are filled, I will use the smaller streams.' Next came Coho. 'I prefer the short, fast, clear waters for my spawning,' was his request. Sockeye was quick to step up and said 'I claim the lakes.' At the end was poor little Humpback. He looked up and softly said, 'I'll take whatever is left.' And so it is that even today, each type of salmon can be found in the streams they picked. But you will notice that there are more Humpback salmon than all the others.

How Raven Made People

One day, Raven felt lonely, so he decided to make people. He strutted along the beach looking for a way to make humans. He saw some stones. He piled them up and said, 'Now, become human and walk.' The stones started to tremble but they quickly tumbled to the ground. 'Well, that didn't work,' he said to himself. Then he found some interesting looking sticks and tied them together with grass. Again, he said, 'Become human and walk!' With only a few clumsy steps they came apart and fell down. Finally, he noticed the beech grass ('chook') blowing in the wind. It almost looked alive. He grabbed a handful, tied some across to make the arms and legs and shouted 'Walk!' Suddenly it came alive and began to move. Sure enough, that was the first person in the world.

I love the idea of fish being rewarded for being humble and the idea that humans originated from the image of beach grass blowing in the wind. What do you think?

Want more? here are other Tlingit Creation Stories

Sunday Salon (18 January)

I can hardly believe it, but this week I managed to finish three books. These days (with two small children) that's the equivalent of what I read in a month, so I wonder if it's extra free time or really good books that is the cause of the change?

What's the most you've read in a week recently?

I managed to finish A Mercy by Toni Morisson which I had started last Sunday. Then I finished YA novel, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. But most of my week was spent reading Affinity by Sarah Waters.

I had watched the TV adaptation at Christmastime, about a lady who visits a Victorian London women's jail and befriends one of the inmates, Selina a spirit-medium and I thought that because I knew of the twists that would happen that I might not enjoy it as much. It wasn't the case. I was absolutely swept away. This was the first book I'd read by Waters but it certainly won't be the last.

What do you like to do first, read the book or watch the adaptation? (I find that I like to watch the adaptation first. The book will always be better, so if I read the book first then it spoils the adaptation. Watching the adaptation first means that I enjoy the main points of the story and like it for what it is without cringing at small details that were changed/altered to make it a good adaptation from the book.)

Since then, I have picked up a book by one of my favourite authors, Paul Auster. I have had The New York Trilogy out from the library for several weeks now. I had tried reading it a few times before but it never stuck. So far, I'm 40 pages into the first story, City of Glass and I'm fairly sure that I will finish this story at the very least.

I'd read on other book reviews of The New York Trilogy being compared to Haruki Murakami and I understand that connection a bit more now. It does resemble the beginning of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, in that a weird phone call sets of a chain of reactions that leads to some rather bizarre circumstances. Have I mentioned that Haruki Murakami is one of my favourite authors as well?

Do you always finish a book once you've started it? If you didn't, do you discard the book forever? How long would you wait before trying it again if it was a book you were fairly certain you would like?

As far as my week has gone on this blog, some bookish links: I discussed my love of Anne Frank's diary, I shared some bookish memories in the Bookshelf meme, and this weeks Sabuda Saturdays took a look at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Check out what everyone else is up to at The Sunday Salon.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Robert Sabuda

Welcome back to my weekly edition of Sabuda Saturdays! Miss the first, Wonderful Wizard of Oz? This week, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a pop-up adaptation of Lewis Carroll's original tale. After Wizard of Oz, I fell in love. But after Alice, I was hooked for life!


The pop-ups themselves are in the style of original illustrator John Tenniel. This book contains six large pop-ups including Alice running after the White Rabbit, the Tea Party with the Mad Hatter and Alice playing croquet. It also features numberous side panels on each page which contain other smaller pop-ups. (see last photo of Alice's head)


Everything about this book is magical to me. The colours used, the movement of the pop-ups and their complexity, the touches of coloured foil, the sense of surrealness that comes from turning the pages. The story is one that everyone recognises and knows something about, and the pop-ups and illustrations bring this story to life.


And it all seems to culminate in the work of papercraft genius that is the final large pop-up of the book, Alice's fight with the pack of cards. I was in awe of it the first time I saw this pop-up and it still impresses me.

Here is an example of one of the smaller pop-ups enclosed in the side flaps. As the page is turned either way, Alice's neck grows larger or smaller. There are no small details in this book, everything is just right and believable.

Stay tuned for more Sabuda Saturdays...

Anne Frank's Diary

Did anyone else watch the BBC's adaptation of Anne Frank's Diary last week? I'm still catching up and only finished watching it a few days ago. It was a 5 part mini-series with each episode being 30 minutes long.

I first read Diary of a Young Girl when I was 11 or 12. I felt connected to Anne is so many ways. I loved her voice, her sense of hope. It was her diary that opened my eyes to World War II. I became obsessed after that to read what I could of other experiences during WWII. It's something I'm passionate about, even now. When I started my first journal around this time, I began each entry with 'Dear Kitty' and when I started my first blog many years ago, I included the passage in which Anne writes about how no one would be interested in the musings of a 13 year old girl.

Watching the TV adaptation has made me realise how deep my affection is for Anne Frank, how much I've taken the suffering that happened during this period to heart, and especially that there is more I'd like to accomplish on my Lifelong list of goals including visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and visiting a concentration camp, possibly Auschwitz.

My dad was able to go to Amsterdam a few years ago in which he visited the Anne Frank House and bought this gorgeous book for me. I've included a photo of a random page, which shows pictures of some of the Hollywood film stars that Anne collected. I think if there's any book that I'd like to re-read this year, it will be Anne Frank's Diary of A Young Girl.




















And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world.

I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

A Bookshelf meme

I've seen this absolutely everywhere and have been meaning to post it for weeks. Eva at A Striped Armchair came up with this meme awhile back and it was fun looking through some of my old books in the loft.

The Rules
1. Tag 3-5 people, so the fun keeps going!
2. Leave a comment at the original post at A Striped Armchair, so that Eva can collect everyone’s answers.
3. If you leave a comment and link back to Eva as the meme’s creator, she will enter you in a book giveaway contest! She has a whole shelf devoted to giveaway books that you’ll be able to choose from, or a bookmooch point if you prefer.
4. Remember that this is all about enjoying books as physical objects, so feel free to describe the exact book you’re talking about, down to that warping from being dropped in the bath water…
5. Make the meme more fun with visuals! Covers of the specific edition you’re talking about, photos of your bookshelves, etc.

the book that’s been on your shelves the longest:
On the actual bookshelves, I think the oldest books probably came from N. His old annuals from when he was a little boy, some books of his father's that he's kept. I have some books passed on to me from my father as well. The oldest book *I* remember acquiring? The first book I bought myself was Anne's House of Dreams by LM Montgomery. I bought it at a local garage sale for 50 cents. Maybe it was 25. It was the last book I needed to complete the Anne series. Around that same time someone gave me a gift certificate and I bought a hardback copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy all in one book. I loved the first two and have never read Little Lord Fauntleroy.

a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time, etc.):
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck or A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth both remind me of the period just after moving to England from Oregon in August of 2000. I was a little depressed by the move, I didn't know anyone, I wasn't able to work. Grapes of Wrath had been my favourite book when I was in high school so I wanted to read something familiar and comforting. A Suitable Boy was a book that was lent to me by a friend of N's. I was so swept up in the history and the language and the story that for a time I forgot my own troubles. I had to give that copy of A Suitable Boy back, but another newer copy was given to me for my birthday.

the most recent addition to your shelves:
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, from ReadItSwapIt, which I've just recently starting using again. I swapped it for my copy of The Great Gatsby, which if I'm honest, I didn't love.

a book you acquired in some interesting way (gift, serendipity in a used bookstore, prize, etc.)
I don't think I have any interesting stories to tell here. I buy books from bookstores, online, library sales, used book stores, charity shops. I used to get ARCs when I worked in a bookstore. Before that, at WHSmith, sometimes they'd clear out their shelves and books would be reduced to 1p and I'd pick them up. Oh, I did once recieve The English by Jeremy Paxman as a housewarming gift. It was from a friend of N's who didn't know what to bring. N told him if he HAD to bring something than to give a copy of his favourite book and that I would like it. I liked it better than the plants other people brought which quickly died.

the book whose loss would traumatise you the most
My copy of The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I don't remember who gave me the book or when, but I loved the series. I still do. If I ever lost my copy I would be inconsolable. I love the feel of that book in my hands, I love the simple little story, I love the illustrations. The last one in the book, when the boxcar was transferred to the grandfather's garden is so beautiful to me that I wished that I could live there.

a book that’s been with you to the most places:
Probably my tattered copy of Charlotte's Web by EB White. It was my favourite book for a long time and I used to carry it with me wherever I went. Until one day I had a fight with my brother and he 'accidentally' ripped the front cover. I feel a little weepy everytime I look at it's poor taped cover. I've always been really particular about keeping my books in a certain condition that it breaks my heart to see it like that.

a bonus book that you want to talk about but doesn’t fit into the other questions:
Well, currenly on my bedside table is Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek, which I did won in a giveaway as well as Black Boxes by Caroline Smailes. I've decided that these two books are books I must read as soon as possible.


I can't think who to tag, so if you're reading this and haven't yet participated, do it now! I'd love to read your answers! Let me know.