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...