A Book thing

Marie was tagged with this and offered it up for every one to have a go.
1. Book/s that changed my life

Ooks now that’s difficult. To a certain extent every book’s perspective slightly changes your life and opens you up to the world, but OK if I have to go for life changing experiences: The Lonely Planet Mexico guide. I still flick through it’s worn pages and the cover falls off in my hand even though it’s been sellotaped back on many times and I guess I never looked back since the day I bought it.

2. Book you’ve read more than once

Well, like Marie I think I’ve read Wuthering Heights more than once and Jane Eyre (because I had read Wide Sargasso Sea, so then I went back to the inspiration). As a teenager I re-read S.E. Hinton and Catcher in the Rye, I think that was all to do with discovering independence and craving it, so I looked up to these relatively free (if somewhat fucked up) teenagers. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (it was just so funny that you had to go back and catch up on the footnotes). E.M. Forster, recently I was reading all his books so I re-read Passage to India. And my comics, I re-read those all the time.

3. Book you’d want on a desert island

Love in the Time of Cholera, Midnight’s Children and Where the Wild Things Are.

4. Book that made you laugh

The Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, Julian Barnes, Nick Hornby and a silly scene in Manolita Gafottas (but I think that sticks in my head because I was reading it in Spanish and I actually understood it).

5. Book that made you cry

My last day in Bali, I spent glued to my sun lounger desperately flicking through the last pages of The Time Traveller’s Wife. I knew it couldn’t end well, so I was glad for the sunglasses and the sarong which I used to discreetly wipe my tears away. The curious incident of the Dog in the Night also had me bawling my eyes out through the last few pages. Setting Free the Bears, more so the second time (oh that’s another book I’ve re-read) because I knew what had happened.

6. Book that you wish you had written

Skellig by David Almond, every time I read it I think, bloody hell this is brilliant.

7. Book that you wish you had been never written

The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. Grr... just don’t get me started on this one.

8. Book you are reading at the moment

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (and Skellig for the umpteenth time).

9. Books you’ve been meaning to read

Skint’s books, Minx’s book, Debi Alper’s books

10. Book you read in one sitting

The Cement Garden

11. Book you didn’t quite “get”

Ehm, not that I’ve ever gone back and given this a try again, but Portrait of an Artist as Young Man. It wasn’t so much didn’t get, as just didn’t have the energy to read it.

12. Three authors whose books you will always buy or read, no questions asked

Julian Barnes, David Almond, Marquez ... I could go on...

13. Forget the book and just watch the movie

I think I’m quite a visual person, so I don’t usually say this. You know the characters never look the way I see them or there is always something just not quite right, but ... I read the Black Dahlia a few years back (I think he wrote LA Confidential) and I just kept thinking to myself, I don’t have the patience to read this, I want to know what is going on now, if only there was a movie... Well, now there is, et voila.

Oh and don't forget to let us know if you're having a go. I love reading other people's lists of books.