Julie Ellam just writing down what's on my mind

My Big Read

In April 2003 the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel. A recent blog meme has asked how many you've read and how many you want to read. I've reverted to the original list. Green have been read, italic orange are either on my selves to read or I'd like to read. Once I have finished them I may move on to the others.

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

A good Year – Peter Mayle

After reading Chasing Cézanne I felt Peter Mayle was a good enough writer to follow up with A Good Year.

Previous visits to Provence have given me an affinity with the locations discussed in these books and some small understanding of the French/English/American interaction.

The writing in this book is gentle; smooth like a beautiful red wine, with humorous overtones. There was intrigue hiding within the pages but I expected more from this. There was no build up or crescendo; the plot simply teetered off to a quite end; soft and pleasing but a slight disappointment.

I’ll give it time before I decide whether this has put me off the writer.

Savage Garden by Mark Mills

Last year I was buying books for my mother-in-law to read whilst she was recovering from a stroke. As I perused the book shelves I saw Savage Garden by Mark Mills and was attracted by both the front and back cover. I’m not sure if I bought the book at the time (I must ask) but in the year since I have spied the book repeatedly on book shelves and in shop windows. It seemed that the book was calling to me, reminding me that it had piqued my interest all those months ago.

On a roam through Waterston’s last month I felt the pull again with a 3 for 2 offer on at the time, I felt at last that I should take the plunge and buy the book.

After such a long time I felt no need to start the book immediately. I’m sure there was some reason why the book was placed on the shelf until another time (probably the other 2 books in the offer) but a few weeks ago I finally picked it up, and I’m glad to have done so.

Within the first few pages I felt an attraction to the characters laid out before me. References to art, literature and history seem to lay a foundation on which multiple mysteries from differing times have been woven. Beautifully written, this book kept my interest throughout and as I lay the book down I felt satisfied.

Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

I heard a quote in a TV program the other day, said by one of my favourite actors. It was a quote from Far from the Madding Crowd, a copy of which I have owned from some 15 years but have never read. There are so many books to read out there that it’s difficult to know how to choose which one to pick up next. Hearing such a quote seems as good a reason as any to me, so I pulled the book down from the shelf and began to read.

This is the first book of Thomas Hardy that I have read and one of the few ‘classic’ books that I have attempted (a situation I now intend to rectify). This meant that the language being used hindered my reading at the start of the book. Within the first five pages I have probably noted at least ten words that I was not quite sure of. This did not bode well for an easy read, but after the first chapter I found that my mind had become accustomed to the language and began to relish in the descriptive nature of Hardy’s writing. I loved how he described the wind blowing over and through the forest, as if both were alive and interacting with each other; the vivid way in which the characters were illustrated truly helped me visualise the personalities and their temperament.

I laughed at times and I cried at others. At one point I even shouted at one character in the book – out loud!

Descriptive, moving, humorous, beautiful. When I put this book down I didn’t wish to speak.

My Reading

I’m not reading more at the moment; I’m simply reading a larger range of books. It is helping me broaden my language, my knowledge and my outlook.

I’ll write some reviews of the books I read and probably the reason behind my choice.

I don’t like to read book reviews before I approach a book as I am easily swayed and on some occasions wouldn’t pick up a book if I’d heard a discouraging assessment. That is one of the reasons why my reviews will be short, but also because they relate to my interaction with the book. Reading for me is quite a personal affair.