A custodion of books

Thanks to Andy, I'm now going to tell you about some books and things. This is very difficult for me since I only learnt to read when I was 29.

Here goes...


Total number of books owned, ever
Is this some sort of joke? I've no idea, probably around 400-500. I currently have about 200, or is it 80? I really couldn't say.

Last book I bought
Errrm, I think it was a bulk buy of the Cirque du Freak series by Darren Shan - a young boy becomes a half vampire to save his friend's life and goes on lots of adventures with his vampire boss.


Last book I read
I can't remember. I'm afraid blogging has very much interefered with my reading over recent months. It could well be Morality for beautiful girls by Alexander McCall-Smith, book three of the Number 1 ladies detective agency series. Or it could've been one of the Darren Shan books.


Five books that mean a lot to me
Right, I'm going to go for series of books for some of these

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling. Don't laugh. I was a tad poorly a few years back and I found myself not doing much with my spare time. A friend recommended that I start reading to help pass the time, he said that he'd recently read this book that all the kids were going mad for and that he'd enjoyed it and had the others in the series. That book was the first in the Harry Potter series. Reluctantly, I read it and I found myself enjoying it, I realised that I actually enjoyed reading and it got me into the habit of always having a book on the go. This was very important at the time and it helped to turn things around for me a little bit.

I've read and re-read all the books in this series, my favourite so far is The Prisoner of Azkaban.


2. The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe, CS Lewis. Magical. Every child who read this book believed that Aslan would save the day. It's one of those that can be read time again without ever losing anything. Wonderful story. This is even more special because my sister used to read it to me when we were kids (we shared a bedroom).


3. The Talisman and Black House, Stephen King & Peter Straub. Brilliant stories, excellently written, full of monsters, horror and suspense. The problem with Stephen King is that he can go a bit overboard on descriptive text sometimes and it's nice to have this broken up by Straub's writing. These two books don't have much in the way of sentimental value, just impact.

I was also particularly impressed with King's Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne.


4. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman. I read these books and was totally and utterly captivated by every single thing about them: the concepts, the characters, the writing, the way they pissed of the Catholics. The WRITING is amazing, particularly in The Amber Spyglass. I was left completely stunned when I'd finished reading this trilogy.


5. Asterix the Gaul, Goscinny & Uderzo. Not just Asterix the Gaul, but all the others too. These are the reason I never read properly when I was a kid; I couldn't cope with proper text or books because they just didn't interest me. Every time we went to Italy for our hols, we always went armed with the latest Asterix adventures and even resorted to buying Italian editions of new books if we finished all ours while away.

I still love my comics today and I ADORE Bill Waterson's wonderful Calvin & Hobbes. I like the way Waterson never compromised by submitting to the commercialisation of his work - there is no Calvin & Hobbes merchandise except the books themselves, although you can get a few of the limited edition lithographs.


So, those are some sniffy books. I haven't even mentioned Lemony Snicket or Robin Jarvis, but both of these authors deserve a mention because they've provided me with such a huge amount of enjoyment with their work.

I'll spare you all the trouble and I won't pass it this on to anybody else, but it'd be interesting to learn of others' favourite reads if anybody can be bothered.