1st: Book to curl up in front of a fire with?
What ever I am currently reading as long as the weather is appropriate!
2nd: 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.
3rd: 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
4th: One with a beautiful spine
Not just the spine but the whole package of The Invention of Hugo Cabret was beautiful.
5th: 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!
6th: 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.
7th: Last book bought in a bookshop?
The script of My Night With Reg after seeing the play.
8th: Best bookshop find?
This has to be the secondhand copy of a rare Chalet School book that I found for very little money.
9th: Favourite book about a bookshop?
84 Charing Cross Road without a doubt.
10th: 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!
11th: Bought at a BAMB party?
This was The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain at the Jarrold's party in 2013.
12th: 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.
13th: 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.
14th: 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.
15th: 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.
16th: 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.
17th: The nearest book to you right now
The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Sounds pretentious but I'm typing this as a break from studying!
18th: 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.
19th: 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,
20th: Favourite bookworm in literature
The eponymous Matilda or Jo March from Little Women
21st: 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.
22nd: Makes me want to travel
Most books not set in Norfolk that I read! Some even make me want to time-travel too.
23rd: Best book on diversity
Malorie Blackman's Boys Don't Cry challenged so many commonly held prejudices and is fantastic.
24th: 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.
25th: 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!
26th: 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!
27th: 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.
28th: 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.
29th: 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.
30th: 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.31st: 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.
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