WoollyWorld of Books

I've had a lifelong love affair with reading, started by my amazing Mum who taught me to read at an early age. My tastes have varied through the years and I can honestly say I like all sorts of different genres. Along with a group of friends from our village we set up a Book Group in March 2004 and are still going to this day. Belonging to this group has helped spread my reading choices and stopped me only reading Harlan Coben and Robert Goddard all the live long day! I do have a tendency to read every book an author has produced, once I find them.

This is my hotch potch, rather scattergun record of the books I've loved, shaken my fist at, puzzled over and most particularly saved all my pocket money to buy. It will probably be a neverending work in progress as I delve into my memory. Do share your comments, recommendations or memories here, as I do love to hear from you......

Earliest loves:

Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island - LM Montgomery

Carries War - Nina Bawden

Little House in the big woods, Little House on the prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little Women - LM Alcott

Magic Faraway Tree, Mallory Towers (most fave!), St Clares, Famous Five, Secret Seven - Enid Blyton

Moonfleet - J Meade Falkner

Nancy Drew Mysteries - apparently various authors (I was oblivious to this as a child)

Pollyanna -  Eleanor H Porter

What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next - Susan Coolidge

Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

The Hardy Boys - Franklin W Dixon (again many ghostwriters under this name)

Moving on:

A Town like Alice - Nevil Shute
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Bleak House - Charles Dickens

Far from the madding crowd, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, Under the Greenwood Tree,Mayor of Casterbridge, The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy

I capture the castle - Dodie Smith

Lady Chatterley's lover, Sons & Lovers, Women in Love, The Three Novellas - DH Lawrence
Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
Love for Lydia, Fair stood the wind for France, Sleepless Moon, Feast of July - HE Bates

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (most fave of this section)

Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen

Rebecca, Jamica Inn - Daphne Du Maurier

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (Never could manage Lord of the Rings)

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

More recent years:

Alphabet Murders (all of them) - Sue Grafton
Amateur Marriage - Anne Tyler
Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, Engelby - Sebastian Faulks
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Case Histories, One Good Turn,Behind the scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Counselling for Toads - Robert de Board
December - Elizabeth H Winthrop
Dying to tell - Robert Goddard
East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Five People you meet in Heaven - Mitch Albon
Freakonomics - SG Levitt & SJ Dubner
Grey Souls - Phillipe Claudel
Guernica - Dave Boling
Half of a yellow sun - Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
Harlan Coben - no point going into detail as there are loads of them!
Knitting - Anne Bartlett
Light a penny candle - Maeve Binchy
Miss Pettigrew lives for a day - Winifred Watson
My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, The Gulag Archipelago - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Past Caring (and every other book he's written, there are just too many to write them all! this one joint fave) - Robert Goddard
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Property - Valerie Martin
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
Saturday - Ian McEwan
Secret History - Donna Tartt

Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes

Snowdrops - AD Miller
Snowman - Jo Nesbo
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
The Birth of Venus - Sarah Dunant
The hand that first held mine (joint fave in this section), After you'd gone, My Lover's Lover, The Distance between us, The Vanishing act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
The Millenium Trilogy - Stieg Larsson
The Other Hand - Chris Cleave
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obreht

The Time Traveller's Wife (joint fave) - Audrey Niffenegger
Toast - Nigel Slater
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks