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.