What are your favorite books?

I don’t know how old I was when I learned to read, but I do remember loving books from a very early age. My best birthday gift as a child would be a Book Token from the local bookshop, then I could go and spend hours daydreaming and deciding which book I would like to add to my bookshelf. I loved going to the lo cal library and wa allowed to go after school onthe bus on a Wednesday to pick out my books. It must have been while I was in Junior School ( Elementary).

I had threepence… a penny down on the bus, a penny back and a penny to spend at the sweet shop opposite the Library. I do remember sitting on a bench by the Bus Stop reading my way through at least one of my books before I ever got home! I loved travel books, the stories of Ghengis Khan and Marco Polo. Favourite books as an adult?

I studied English Literature for my Grammar School ‘A’ Level exams and have to say that that pretty much finished me off for any pleasure reading of the ‘classics’, though it did instill a great love for Shakespeare in performance. I’d say my tastes are eclectic - though I lean towards non fiction and biography. That is not to say that I wouldn’t get into a good novel. My most recent practice is to take note of any recommended books from whatever source, book review, a friend, something I have seen in a bookshop and immediately ( or ASAP) add it to my list of ‘hold’s on the Vancouver Island Regional Library site.

Some come quickly, some take forever, some are good reads and some I dispense with very quickly, but it does give me a broad selection of reads. On the go at the moment are a Ruth Rendell mystery and ‘101 letters to a Prime Minister’ by Yann Martell which looks promising. I have just finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Remains of the Day’, well worth the read. So there, favourites? does anyone go back and read a book twice?