Micro Reviews 76 and 77

 

The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown (Hachette Book Group)

I think that someone made me aware of the first book in this pair at some point last year so I was aware of the book but when Kentishbookboy said that the 2^nd book was on his Christmas list I decided it was time to have a proper look at them.

I’m so pleased that I did – these are just wonderfully gentle books that have some huge messages to share with readers, but these are woven into the plot so naturally that it isn’t until you close the book you realise just how profound the books are.

In book one there is a shipwreck and a robot, called Roz, somehow survives and washes up on a remote island where she boots up in to life. She is a complete innocent at first and slowly starts to work out how to survive, despite the harsh conditions and unfriendly animals already living on the island.

There is lots of peril, lots of learning and also lots of happy events as Roz finds her place on the island. The final adventure is incredibly gripping but as this sets up book 2 I’m not going to talk about it and give away the details.

In a gentle and natural way the book is about loneliness, prejudice, fear, finding a home, being different, and how your family doesn’t have to be traditional. The sequel includes these themes too, along with the dangers of unrestricted use of AI, grief, and depression. But again you don’t realise this until after you’ve shut the book and start thinking about it.

I like that the idea that Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics are obeyed in this story even as we suspend belief in that Roz doesn’t need to top up her charge at any point…

I adored these two books, and the short chapters made them ideal for reading whilst in the queue for rides at Disneyland Paris – huge thanks to Norfolk Libraries ebook offer which meant I could download the 2^nd book in France as soon as I’d finished the first one!

Micro Review 12

 

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink (published by Picador)

Books about books are a real weakness of mine and this book was a delight to read. Rentzenbrink mixes personal history with comments on the books she was reading at the time. She was also a bookseller for a considerable period of time and her memories of books & events from this period of her life tally with many of my memories of bookselling which gave me an added level of enjoyment.

While I have read many of the books talked about I did find myself going back through each chapter (once I'd raced through the book) to make notes of books to hunt out or to re-read. As ever now to find the time to read all of these books!

Like Lucy Mangan's Bookworm this is a book I read in proof form thanks to Net Galley but is one that I also need a physical copy of, just to be able to dip in and out of when looking for inspiration for my next read!

Beating the block

A book for every season...

I sound a little bit like a broken record as I keep complaining of reader's block - I do remind myself just how lucky I am that I can still read and that not finding something to sink into is a minor problem.

Deep down I know all of this but it is still frustrating to find yourself stuck at home due to bad weather and not knowing what to read.

I've decided to try proper bibliotherapy to get over this - I think of a topic that I think will take my fancy and then look it up in The Novel Cure! The most useful part so far has been the top 10s at the back of the book and if I am totally honest I've actually spent more time reading this than anything from it but hey - it all counts as reading right?

I am asked by friends if I can think of books about different topics for children of various ages. I've now been out of the frontline of children's books for a decade and while I try to stay current I am sometimes stumped but no longer...there is a Story Cure - an A-Z of books to keep kids happy. healthy and wise and thus my reading for this weekend (yet another windy one) is sorted!

Look out Kentishbookboy - lists of new books will be coming your way very soon!

Book group at a distance

Sharing books as a family.

While I use the nickname Norfolkbookworm a lot it seems that I've managed to share this love of the written word with my nephew in Kent and as he gets older we are sharing more and more books.

Since before he was born we've indulged in book splurges on a fairly regular basis. These are great fun - we set a budget and then spend *ages* in a bookshop looking at all the shelves making piles of all the books that appeal. Once we've done this we find a cosy corner/table/sofa in the shop and carefully read the book blurbs and first pages to make our final lists. The books not selected are added to a list and looked for in the library or added to birthday or Christmas lists. My sister also tries to take him to as many events with his favourite authors as possible - highlights here have been Andy Griffiths, Tim Peake and Steve Backshall.

Last summer he recommended the 13 Storey Treehouse (and sequels) to me and I've spent many happy afternoons enjoying the craziness and imagination of the tales.

This autumn he enters Year 5 and his school sees reading as really important (hurrah!) and his class teacher has set a reading challenge - a list of 22 books has been drawn up and the children are encouraged to read 12 of the books during the school year.

This was such a coincidence as over the summer we'd discovered the wonderful lists created by the Books for Topics team - these have 50 books on them suitable for each year group and are a wonderful mix of fiction, non fiction and poetry titles.

As a family we've looked at these lists and have decided that although I'm in Norfolk and they are in Kent we're all going to read the same books and then either phone each other to talk about them or use social media.

Term started this week and so we've started the first book - The Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher. (Typically this book isn't on any of the lists but something drew my sister and nephew to it, and now that nanny has finished it and returned it with a thumbs up review, it seemed a good starting point!)

'Above all, we must be brave'

1944, and London is under attack. The umbrella shop that young mouse, Pip Hanway has called home all her life, is destroyed by a bomb, forcing her to begin a perilous quest to find a new home.

 But the only way to get there is by joining Noah's Ark, a secret gang of animals fighting with the resistance in France, operating beneath the feet of human soldiers. Danger is everywhere and as the enemy closes in, Pip must risk everything to save her new friends.

With my love of fiction set in wartime this book really appealed to me and using animals to tell a true story is a clever way to introduce deeper topics and history to my nephew. There are beautiful illustrations scattered through the text really which are really adding to the tale.

The Kent contingent of the book group are reading three chapters a night, with each member of the family reading a chapter aloud, and I am also limiting myself to the same pace so that we can share the story fully.  We may only have just finished chapter 6 but all of agree that the writing is so good that we really think we are in wartime London - my sister and I agree that we could almost smell the setting as we were reading.

We'll keep you posted on how the group reading goes and I hope to feature book reviews from my nephew as we go along - once he picks the nickname he wants to publish under!

Top 10 Books of 2014

Top fiction and non fiction from 2014.

Despite a lot of my reading being for uni during the year I seem to still have managed a lot of reading for pleasure too, although it has to be said I struggled more to get a top 10 for each genre, more than 5 was easy but getting to 10 less so.

These are simply in alphabetical order and nothing more - simply the best books I have read this year.

Fiction:

• Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray
• A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
• Ishmael's Oranges - Claire Hajaj
• Wars of the Roses: Trinity - Conn Iggulden
• The Dead Lake - Hamid Ismaliov
• Strange Weather in Tokyo - Hiromi Kawakami
• A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Oyezeki
• Unspeakable - Abbie Rushton
• Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
• Mrs Hemingway - Naomi Woods

In this we have 2 books not out until 2015, 2 in translation and one sequel that was easily as good as the first!

Non-fiction

• The Fateful Year: 1914 - Mark Bostridge
• Europe in the Looking Glass - Robert Byron
• Bitter Lemons - Lawrence Durrell
• How to Be a Heroine - Samantha Ellis
• Apple of My Eye - Helene Hanff
• H is for Hawk - Helen Macdonald
• My Salinger Year - Joanna Smith Rakoff
• The Boy in the Top Knot - Sathnam Sanghera
• Without Reservations - Alice Steinbach
• Gin, Glorious Gin - Olivia Williams

From this list it seems that travel writing is my top genre of 2014!

Here's to another year of reading in 2015, although studying continues and will involved a 15000 word dissertation so who knows how much I'll read for pleasure.  I do have a 2 week beach holiday planned which will mean at least a dozen books...!

Bookaday November

This wonderful challenge making you think about and talk about books continued into November with the publisher Headline throwing out the challenges for the month:

1^st: Movember begins - your favourite hairy hero?

We're talking beards and moustaches here and I think that I would have to pick Mr Twit here - not a role model but a wonderful character!

2^nd:A book you can't wait to read this winter?

I have no self control and as soon as a book comes out I have to read it - the one I was waiting for most keenly was the new Conn Iggulden and it didn't disappoint.

3^rd: Your favourite fictional family?

Often is which ever book I'm reading at the time but I like the chaos of the Weasley family, although do love Little Women I think the family itself would drive me insane.

4^th: A brilliant epic read - we mean one with more than 600 pages!

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres for a one volume epic but if not The Flowers of the Field & A Flower That's Free by Sarah Harrison (not so fusssed about the 3rd volume!)

5^th: Guy Fawkes Night - pick a character you love to hate.

Achilles in Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles is a bit annoying but it is still a great book.

6^th: A book that reminds you of your schooldays?

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth as I remember when my group of friends discovered this one and read it.

7^th: The book you wished you'd owned as a first edition?

I'd love a Shakespeare's First Folio!

8^th:Doctor Who ends tonight - best book featuring time travel?

I have three for this one: The Time Traveller's Wife, Charlotte Sometimes and Tom's Midnight Garden

9^th: A book you have to read twice to fully appreciate?

Most of Shakespeare's plays - once to just get the story and then a 2nd time using all of the notes to get the full meaning. Who knew Romeo and Juliet was such a smutty play?

10^th: Happy Birthday Neil Gaiman! Favourite fantasy novel?

Not a huge serious fantasy fan but I like most of Trudi Canavan's books and most of Garth Nix's

11^th: Remembrance Day - your favourite WW1 novel?

There's a lot of good WW1 fiction out there but I think that this is a tie between War Horse and Remembrance by Theresa Breslin.

12^th:A book on your shelf that you haven't got round to reading yet?

Shamefully there are many but the author I keep meaning to start but then never getting around to is Dickens.

13^th: A book you'd love to see on the big screen?

None of them - the book is always better than the film!

14^th: A book you loved but wouldn't want your mum to read?

She reads this blog so I'm not going to list it here! In all honesty I think I'd pass anything on to my mum just with the appropriate warnings, my parents were always open minded when it came to reading.

15^th: A book that made you hungry?

I can't remember the title but it was a travel memoir of a man and his family in Japan and it made me crave all of the food mentioned.

16^th:The best debut you've read this year?

Ishmael's Oranges  by Clare Hajaj.  It was handed to me in a pile of books to read and rate for an upcoming work promotion and I loved every word.

17^th: Your favourite mystery novel?

Not a genre a really like very much but the closest I come is Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time although the Montalbano books are on my to-be-read pile.

18^th: It's Scotland v England! Tell us your favourite sport book?

I don't mind watching some sport but reading about it isn't my favouite thing so I am going to go with Cat by Freya North - a novel set during the Tour de France.

19^th: A brilliant book with an eye-catching read cover?

I'm frantically scanning my shelf for books with red covers and all I can see are some antiquarian hardback missing their covers that have red boards... if that counts then I chose some of my Chalet School books!

20^th: Your favourite fictional pet?

Those that appear in the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce.

21^st:A book you've read that you wish had a sequel?

There's a lot of books that I finish wanting to know what happened next but none that I consciously want a sequel too.  Often they aren't as good or are written a long time afterwards and aren't as good.

22^nd: Your favourite book about a journey?

I like travel books a lot and think that perhaps Bill Bryson's books about rediscovering America win here, although Patrick Leigh Fermor is also good, and so is Robert Mcfarlane....

23^rd: An awesome autobiography by one of your heroes?

I love the diaries that Michael Palin is publishing.

24^th: A series you'd happily read all over again?

Has to be the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce.

25^th: One month to go! A book you want for Christmas?

There is a new Greek cookbook out that features some of my favourite dishes so I'd like that, however I already have dozens of Greek cookbooks so this would have to be a gift as I can't justify buying another one!

26^th: Tasty! Your favourite cookery or baking book?

Currently this is Rick Stein's India as we're experimenting with new curries.

27^th: Happy Thanksgiving - your favourite US classic?

Children's classics are the Little Women and Little House on the Prairie books and a modern classic is John William's Stoner.

28^th: A book with beautiful title typography?

H is for Hawk a truly stunning book from cover to cover.

29^th:  Happy birthday C. S. Lewis! Favourite fictional world?

Predictable for those who read these each month but has to be Tamora Peirce's Tortall!

30^th: Your favourite book featuring a wedding?

Oh dear, I must gloss over these as I don't recall many weddings in books at all...

Reading Week

Holiday Reading.

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just spent a week in the Canary Islands as we set ourselves up for winter by absorbing some more vitamin D, typically of course this year autumn has been splendid and the weather only really broke here just as we went but still a week away was wonderful.

This week also coincided with uni reading week but I'm not actually sure that this meant spend a week reading fiction but as I am up-to-date on the course work I wasn't too worried I'd fall behind.

Instead I spent 7 glorious days reading whatever I fancied and as the weather was good I got through an obscene amount of books - 14 and 2 halves (one I gave up on and one I've still to finish).

In no particular order and with just a few comments rather than reviews the books read were:

The Promised Land - Erich Maria Remarque 
Most famous for his anti WW1 novel All Quiet on the Western Front this is a fascinating book about emigres to America during WW2 and follows one man as he settles into life in New York. This is the first time the book has been translated into English and was unfinished when he died - this gives the book an abrupt ending but it was very good.

The Possibilities - Kaui Hart Hemmings 
From the author who wrote the book and Oscar winning film The Descendents. This was a slight tale of a woman coming to terms with the death of her son and the realisation that she didn't actually know him very well. It was all set in a ski resort and I think that I got more out of this book from having visited Mammoth in California than I would have done without knowing the type of town the book was set in. A slight read that passed the time but that will fade quickly from my memory.

Burial Rites - Hannah Kent 
From the blurb on the back of this book I really thought it wasn't for me but it just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by a cover.  Set in Iceland in the 1800s a convicted murderess is sent to live with a family while she awaits execution and slowly the tale unfolds.  This isn't a crime story per se but is utterly compelling and an intelligent page turner which I really recommend.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn 
This has been a huge hit in book and film form and was again not a book I expected to like as thrillers aren't usually my thing but again I was pleased to be wrong. You can't like any of the characters in this book but it is an amazing piece of story telling. Not saying anymore for fear of spoiling it for others yet to discover it.

A Song for Issy Bradley - Carys Bray 
This was a recommendation from two places and I am very pleased that I bumped it up my to-be-read pile. It is a story of a family coming to terms with the loss of a child but the added dimension of the family's Mormon faith.  This isn't a complex story but it is very moving and I found my sympathy changing with each chapter I read. I've read a few books with Mormon protagonists but they were all very negative portrayals - this is far more subtle.

Love Charm of Bombs - Lara Feigel 
This is a non-fiction book that tells the story of WW2 through the eyes of some of the leading writers at the time such as Graham Greene and Rose Macaulay.  I liked the idea of telling the story of the war through writers but thought the conceit was stretched a little with the comparison to the First World War poets.  An interesting read but not a stand out.

Crooked Heart - Lissa Evans
This was an odd duck of a book as it reminded me of a lot of other books but still remained unique.  A precocious boy is living with his guardian at the start of the WW2 but this life comes to an end after her death.  He is then evacuated to St Albans where he is taken in by a lady who sees him as a way to make money.  With his brains and her gumption the two soon get into all sorts of shady business - complicated by her borderline criminal son.  The book was a quick, easy read but slight and never really rose above either a young adult novel or a Mills and Boon.  I liked it but wanted just a little bit more.
 
A Place Called Winter - Patrick Gale
This ended up being another book with a war setting - WW1 this time - and one of my favourite reads of the holiday.  A family man is forced to leave Edwardian England to avoid a scandal and instead make a new life for himself creating a farm in the wilds of Canada.  This is another book I don't want to say too much about as it unfolds beautifully, for me it was very much like a grown up Little House on the Prairie and as that is one of my favourite series of books for children I loved the entire thing and got fully swept up in the story and characters. This was a book that really came to life before my eyes.

Belzhar - Meg Wollitzer 
Last year I read and loved The Interestings by this author and so looked forward to this a lot and while it was still good I didn't realise that it was a young adult novel and thus found it to be less nuanced and in depth than I was hoping.  After a breakdown Jam has been sent to a boarding school for emotionally fragile teenagers and on arrival finds she has been selected for a special English class with only a handful of other teenagers.  This class only studies one book all semester and the only homework is to keep a journal.  The story does contain several twists and one in particular really surprised me, this is good quality young adult literature but the ending keeps it firmly in that bracket and it isn't elevated any higher.  I'll keep looking for books by Wollitzer but I think she is a better adult writer.

Mac and Me - Esther Freud 
Another WW1 novel here and this time set in a place I know very well - Southwold in Suffolk.  The descriptions of the town and surrounding areas were great but that is about all that I can recommend about the book as it had so many historical inaccuracies I spent most of the time I was reading it growling and looking things up on Wikipedia to find the truth.

Let's Get Lost - Adi Alsaid
This was a sweet teen novel that I enjoyed a lot, a girl on a road trip to Alaska to see the Northern Lights meets lots of new people on the way and changes the course of their lives. It sounds trite and terrible but was in fact very clever and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

The Lives of Stella Bains - Anita Shreve
Another WW1 set book and again one with a plot I don't want to talk about as the discovery is part of the tale.  It is a slight book but mostly believable if a little too reliant on happy coincidences.  A good holiday read but not much more, I still think her best book is The Pilot's Wife.

A tale for the time being - Ruth Oyezeki 
Rebecca has been encouraging me to read this book for a while now and I am glad that I saved it until I had time to concentrate on it as it changes from being a straightforward (almost) time-slip story to a book full of complicated ideas about faith, philosophy and quantum physics.  Utterly brilliant and I can't wait to read more by Oyezeki - a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Europe in the looking glass - Robert Byron
This book was recommended at the Heffer's Classics Day at the start of November and I am glad I sought it out.  It is a mixture of a Patrick Leigh Fermor travel novel and Jerome K Jerome and is full of wonderful lines and descriptions as well as some cringe-worthy moments of pure 1920s snobbery and entitlement. Great fun but a little exasperating until they reach Greece when it comes to life.

The books I didn't finish:

The Rosie Effect - Graham Simison
Earlier in the year I read and loved The Rosie Project and I was looking forward to the sequel, although I wasn't 100% convinced the book needed one.  I should have stuck with my gut instinct as the comedy of the first book became, for me, unbearable farce and so far fetched and uncomfortable that I had to stop reading and I don't think I'll ever go back to it.

Travels with Epicurus - Daniel Klein
This is a book I am reading slowly as it is full of big ideas. Klein is exploring the ideas of Epicurus and other pphilosophers while living on Hydra - the place where people seem to live the longest and happiest lives.  It mixes big ideas and details about the Greek way of life seamlessly and is giving me a new reading list as long as my arm!

Phew - that was a lot of books in a short space of time and now it is back to the Shakespeare and lit crit books for a while!

Bookaday October

The #bookaday challenge continues in to October, with Books Are My Bag taking the reins. This is a campaign about using bookshops so that they don't all vanish and while may independents do take part in the campaign it is all embracing and about books!

1^st: Book to curl up in front of a fire with?

What ever I am currently reading as long as the weather is appropriate!

2^nd: Happy birthday Snoopy - your favourite fictional dog?

Although I've not re-read the books for a while I remember being most taken with Garth Nix's Disreputable Dog.

3^rd: A book I love from one of the Cheltenham Festival 2014 guests?

Soooo many good authors here that it is hard to pick - I think I am overdue a re-read of Alone on a Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo

4^th: One with a beautiful spine

Not just the spine but the whole package of The Invention of Hugo Cabret  was beautiful.

5^th: Favourite reference to cinema/film in a book.

Again thanks to the depiction of early cinema I think Hugo Cabret wins though today as well!

6^th: First book bought in a bookshop?

Not quite a bookshop but I remember saving my pocket money for the books advertised in the book club leaflet from school and the first one I paid for myself was either Earthstar Magic, Windsong Summer or Little House on the Prairie.

7^th: Last book bought in a bookshop?

The script of My Night With Reg after seeing the play.

8^th: Best bookshop find?

This has to be the secondhand copy of a rare Chalet School book that I found for very little money.

9^th: Favourite book about a bookshop?

84 Charing Cross Road without a doubt.

10^th: One with an orange cover?

The only one I can think of is Joshua Files:The Invisible City by M G Harris - this came in a bright orange plastic sleeve!

11^th: Bought at a BAMB party?

This was The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain at the Jarrold's party in 2013.

12^th: Favourite Bookseller recommendation?

So many after working in the book world for 16 years - most recently it was Mr Penumbra's Twenty-four Hour Bookstore.

13^th: Nostalgic reads! Changed meaning when I re-read it later in life.

I re-read all of the time but the most obvious book with different meaning has to be a children's classic. As a child I loved Black Beauty as a simple horse book during the pony book phase, but later on saw all the messages about animal cruelty, and social injustice to some extent, that Sewell was writing about. Interestingly Little Women is one book that I read very differently from a friend - I see it as a positive book but she sees it very negatively.

14^th: I adore the title of this novel.

A book title is important and I really dislike ones that make you think it is a completely different style of books. As serious books go then I love The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society but for a less serious one that makes me smile it has to be the puntastic Tequila Mockingbird.

15^th: Best home in literature

I like my home a lot but I think that any fictional house that features a library swings it for me, talk of an open fire where I can curl up with a book makes it a winner.

16^th: Most memorable adventure/journey in literature

The part of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe where they are walking in the snow towards the beavers' house and meet Father Christmas.

17^th: The nearest book to you right now

The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Sounds pretentious but I'm typing this as a break from studying!

18^th: Made me laugh in public

Not sure I've laughed out loud a lot while reading in public but certainly snorted and grinned on a train reading Stephen Fry's autobiography More Fool Me recently.

19^th: Made me cry in public

H is For Hawk  and The Love Song of Queenie Hennessey both made me cry on a train in the past few months,

20^th: Favourite bookworm in literature

The eponymous Matilda or Jo March from Little Women

21^st: One where I fell in love with the narrator

Not sure I do this a lot but I often become so immersed in a book that I think I am part of it and struggle to return to the real world or to let go of the book at the end.

22^nd: Makes me want to travel

Most books not set in Norfolk that I read! Some even make me want to time-travel too.

23^rd: Best book on diversity

Malorie Blackman's Boys Don't Cry challenged so many commonly held prejudices and is fantastic.

24^th: A hidden gem

The novels by R C Sherriff. He's well known for the play Journey's End and due the topic of this will be in the news a lot but I suggest looking for the Persephone reprints of his novels.

25^th: Most memorable food/drink moment in literature

Could have chosen any of the picnic scenes from Enid Blyton, the midnight feasts from numerous school stories or the meals at Hogwarts but for me it is the Turkish Delight scene in  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I spent years as a child both wanting to cultivate a taste for the stuff and being worried I'd turn into Edmund if I did!

26^th: Best book on time travel

Another hard one and so I pick two books The Time Traveller's Wife and Charlotte Sometimes they couldn't be more different but I re-read them both!

27^th: Favourite epigraph

I don't have a good memory for these but after looking it up on line the quote used by Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird appeals greatly "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once" originally from Charles Lamb.

28^th: Has the best advice

Any book that leaves you with the message that who ever you are is fine and that you should only change because you want to and not because anyone tells you to do so.

29^th:  Most memorable fashion moment

I'm not into clothes or fashion but the scene in Harry Potter where Ron is in out of date formal robes always makes me feel very sorry for him.

30^th: Favourite experimental book

I was most taken with Marguerite Duras' nouvelle vague book L'Amant (The Lover) when we read it at A Level, I think it was the first non straightforward narrative I'd read.


31^st: Spookiest read.

I don't like scary books but Philippa Gregory's The Little House is I think the closest thing to horror I've read, but Nevil Shute's On the Beach is the most frightening book ever.

Bookaday September

I love that this challenge is continuing for at least another month, this time the questions have been posed by We Love This Book which started as a print magazine for book lovers from the team behind the trade journal The Bookseller but now exists solely on line.

As ever some of my answers went on line but here I do think about them all...

1^st: Favourite book about books and/or bookshops

Torn between 84 Charing Cross Road  and the fabulous Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society both are contenders for desert island books.

2^nd: Favourite book set in a school (Back to School)

Again two choices - stand alone novel is R F Delderfield's To Serve Them All My Days but my favourite series would be the Chalet School books by EM Brent-Dyer.

3^rd: Best Home Front novel (declaration of WW2)

Eeek so hard to chose for this one as I read a lot of wartime fiction, I think that Goodnight Mister Tom might win here.

4^th: The book you bought for the cover

I love the Persephone books and am always seduced by the look and blurb, although not all of them turn out to be as suitable for me as I'd hoped.

5^th: The book you bought despite the cover

Probably anything in my collection with the film cover as the book is always better, I really need to get a traditional version of Anne of Green Gables!

6^th: Favourite book of short stories

Collections by Katherine Mansfield or Mollie Panter-Downes win through here.

7^th: Favourite fictional monarch (Elizabeth 1^st birthday)

At the moment I'm quite taken with Henry VI as portrayed in Conn Iggulden's Wars of the Roses novels.

8^th: Favourite literary dinner party

Not a dinner party as such but the feasts described in the Redwall books by Brian Jacques always made my mouth water.

9^th: Literary crush

It changes all of the time but one of the first I can remember is Peter from Heidi - I wanted to run barefoot on the mountain and eat bread and cheese for lunch.

10^th: A book that gave you hope

I think the books written by Holocaust survivors fit the bill here, to come through such an experience and then write about it without hate gives me hope.

11^th: Best book recommended by a librarian

I can't remember if it was actually a recommendation or an anti-recommendation but I know I lread and oved This is All: The Pillowbook of Cordelia Kenn after talking about it with a librarian

12^th: Favourite Austen character (Austen Festival)

Shhh! Don't tell anyone but I've not read any of Austen's works.

13^th: Favourite Roald Dahl character (Roald Dahl Day)

Matilda - the girl who made reading cool!

14^th: Character most like you

Oh dear lord - I hope there isn't one out there, it would be a very dull book.

15^th: Favourite Agatha Christie story (Christie’s birthday)

I've only read a couple but I did enjoy And then there were none but my copy had the original title!

16^th: Favourite picture book

Diary of a Wombat is my all time favourite but for reading aloud then currently it is Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman.

17^th: Favourite literary detective/policeperson

Not a favouite genre of mine but I liked Alan Grant in Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

18^th: Favourite coming-of-age book

Never entirely sure what compromises a coming-of-age book but I do like Andre Aciman's Call Me By Your Name.

19^th: Favourite seafaring novel (Talk Like a Pirate Day)

Think this one has to be The Cruel Sea.

20^th: Favourite literary friendship

In fiction then I think the friendship portrayed in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants novels is great. In real life I loved reading the accounts of Vera Brittain's friendship with Winifred Holtby.

21^st: A book to turn someone into a reader (International Literacy Day)

This is a very personal thing and you need to know about a person before you can do this well but I know that Journey to the River Sea and The President's Hat have gone down well when I've shared them.

22^nd: Best book recommended by a bookseller (Bookseller's Association conference)

Recently this was Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore which I'd never have picked up without the recommendation.

23^rd: Favourite prize-winning book

Captain Coreilli's Mandolin

24^th: Something to do with Gatsby/Fitzgerald/20s (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday)

Both the opening and closing lines from Gatsby are memorable and ones I've used in literary quizzes.

25^th: A book recommended by your parents

We share books all of the time but as a child mum gave me her childhood copies of Heidi and Little Women, and I had my dad's copy of Black Beauty.

26^th: Favourite poetry collection (TS Eliot’s birthday)

Not a huge poetry fan but do like Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and some collections of WW1 poetry.

27^th: Book set in your favourite country to visit (World Tourism Day)

My favourite destination changes all of the time but I guess Birds Without Wings would be a desert island book and thus counts here.

28^th: Favourite literary troublemaker

Paddington Bear although of course he doesn't mean to be causing trouble!

29^th: The book that made you question everything

I don't think I've come across one that made me question everything...

30^th: The best book you read this month.

I think that this will be Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk as I have recommended it to so many people.

Book a Day July

As promised/threatened last month I've once more summed up all of my answers to the #BookadayUK questions for July into one place.  Some of the questions are a bit similar to those in June but I did manage to respond to a few tweets on the day this month!

1st - A book that made you laugh out loud

The Suicide Shop by Jean Tuele, trans. Sue Dyson.  Deliciously black comedy, I found it a mix of The Addams Family and Pixar's Ratatouille.

2nd - Favourite SF/Fantasy novel for world UFO day

Easier to pick authors than specific books as so many are series rather than stand-alone novels but John Wyndham is a real favourite.

3rd - Favourite novel in translation

Either The President's Hat trans. by a team at Gallic Books or All Quiet on the Western Front (new trans. by Murdoch).

4th - All time favourite American novel for 4th July Independence Day

Children's book has to be Little Women but Stoner by John Williams is one I've recommended a lot.

5th - Most delicious novel about food

I really liked Baking Cakes in Kigali and also Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe but I'm not sure I'd try the barbecue.

6th - Which book you will put down to watch the Wimbledon final

For the first time in a long time I actually stopped reading to watch the sport, I usually multitask, but I was reading Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles (again).

7th - Most chocolatey novel - it's National Chocolate Day

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without a doubt.

8th - Favourite Great War novel

Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is probably my favourite novel set in WW1 but my favourite book about the war is Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.

9th - Most irritating character in a novel

Pollyana.  The idea of turning a positive to a negative is fine once in a while but for two novels and countless spin-offs it is just too much.

10th - Novel with the most memorable picnic for Teddy Bear Picnic Day

Any of the ones that happen in Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books.

11th - The book that made you cry

Many books can make me cry but John Green's The Fault in Our Stars left me a wreck for ages.

12th - Novel that best conjured a place for you

This would be Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mystery series, by the time I got to Rome I felt I knew the place and on visiting Ostia I felt I'd stepped back in time.

13th - Best title for a novel

Which ever one has just caught my eye and made me pick it over everything else I've got in a to read pile.

14th - For Bastille Day, your favourite novel about or set in France

No surprises here as I pick The President's Hat.

15th - Last book that you bought

On the day here it was the wonderful biography of the first American female in space - Sally Ride - as recommended by the team who run Space Lectures and the events in Pontefract with the astronauts.

16th - Favourite book to take to the beach

Cheating here as I have to pick my Kindle as it gives me access to 100s of books to suit whatever mood I'm in.

17th - Novel which surprised you the most

Probably On the Beach by Neville Shute as it was the first truly bleak book I ever read and I was surprised that books didn't have to have a positive ending. I was only about 12 at the time.

18th - Favourite crime novel of all time - it's the Harrogate Crime Festival

Not a favourite genre at all but I do like the Greek Detective books by Anne Zouroudi.

19th - Most memorable plot twist

We Need to Talk About Kevin. I really didn't expect how that concluded. Really powerful writing.

20th - Your desert island novel

Again I'll have to cheat and pick either my Kindle as the thought of being without a book is the scariest thing ever.

21st - The novel you expected to hate, but turned out you loved

I wasn't expecting to like Longbourn as I've not read Pride and Prejudice but it was a real surprise and favourite from 2013.

22nd - The novel you most like to give to friends

I'm always a bit worried that people won't like books I love so I tend to give book tokens!

23rd - Favourite novel with an exotic background

Twisting this to be favourite exotic background and saying anything set in Greece as they either bring back memories or inspire travel!

24th - A book that reminds you of your English teacher

My Family and Other Animals. Durrell was recommended to me by a teacher when I had no clue what to read next.

25th - Book that is your guilty pleasure

The one I'm reading when I should be doing anything else.

26th - The novel you wish you'd written

I'm a reader not a writer so it really could be any book ever written but I think that if pressed I'd pick Matilda by Roald Dahl

27th - For National Parent's Day - the best or worst parents in fiction

Predictable but Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird is awesome.

28th - Favourite animal character

I think this one goes to Badger in Wind in the Willows - antisocial and grumpy but a really good friend when in need! Although Tigger will always be my true favourite character.

29th - Favourite likeable villain

Influenced by the film Hook I've always had a soft spot for Captain Hook from Peter Pan.

30th - The book that you'd like to read thanks to recommendations on the #bookadayuk thread?

I've been reminded of so many books in the past few months but I think that it is time to re-read the Swallows and Amazons series and to try The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov.

31st - The book that reminds you of someone special

Two here - Heidi and Black Beauty as my parents recommended these two to me and I still have their childhood copies of the books.