Day 3 - Favourite Series

Easy... The Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters. 

I love, love, love this series.  I could be an absolute geek about this series and I have tried to get everyone I know to read them. (With varying degrees of success!) It has it all, Egyptology, strong female lead, humour, crime and mystery.  Amelia is a feisty feminist ready to defend herself and her family with her trusty parasol and belt of tools, but most importantly there's two clever and handsome heroes, three if you count Sethos who definitely has his moments too.  Firstly, the wonderful Emerson and then he passes the riskier stuff onto his son Ramses as the series progresses.
These my comfort reads and I adore them...I also have the audiobooks and I tend to go through the whole lot on my daily commute every couple of years just for the fun of it. 

I found the first of the series completely by accident years ago when on an Egyptology summer school killing time in Waterstones over lunch rather than risk looking a total Billy-no-mates.  I'm sure all my serious classmates wouldn't have approved but I lapped it up and then devoured the rest of the available books.

Other series (serious?!) contenders:

Harry Potter - need I say more?

Lady Julia Grey - I love Brisbane! I admit it, I'm easily swayed by a dashing hero.

Sebastian St.Cyr - ditto! 

Terry Pratchett - the witches books, I love Esme Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg
Mary Russell series - ageing Sherlock Holmes.  Started off well but the later ones didn't entertain as much.

Rivers of London - a recent audiobook find.  Really enjoyed them and had developed a bit of a sad crush on Nightingale by the end of Book 4!

No 1 Ladies Dectective - cosy reading where nothing much happens.
Twilight - loved it first time round, but they didn't stand the test of a re-read for me.
Secret Seven - read everything by Enid Blyton but these were my favourites and I prefered them to the Famous Five, but not sure why.

Sue Barton Nurse series - ooo, I read these years ago as a pre-teen, maybe I ought to revisit?!

Do you know, I hadn't realised that I'm a serial series reader?!

Day 2 - Book You've Read More Than Three Times

Ooo difficult...in the past I was a bit of a habitual re-reader and even now there's several favourites that I go back to as a comfort read.  There's also been times when due to lack of cash to buy new fiction and limited access/availability from the library that I re-read purely as I had to read something rather than nothing! 

There's also the dilemma of my childhood reads, is it still usual for kids to re-read their favourites?  The older children at school don't seem to do so now but then there's all the technological distractions that are available.  I know I sound ancient, but as an only child with few children of my age living nearby and only 3 TV channels showing very limited kids programmes (and no daytime TV at all!) you read or got very bored, very quickly!!

So what have I read multiple times?

Removing children's books, which come on a different day.  There's everything by Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett; all the Amelia Peabody series and all the Harry Potters. (I count these as I read them as an adult, is that cheating?)  I adore Remains of the Day and have revisited it several times and as always although the film was beautifully acted I still prefer the book. 1984 is also on the list, I read it first to be clever and then realised how brilliant it was...long time since I last looked at it though.  
On a lighter note I have read several Jilly Cooper's many times, particularly Riders which was educational and possibly instructional and kept me occupied through a damp boating holiday on the Norfolk Broads. 

So I can't really say simply one book I've read more than three times...there's just too many!  Hope that's not too much of a cop out.

Day 1 - The Best Book You Read Last Year

So, it's the start of my challenge!

I had to look back at what I'd read last year, I'd read more than 120 books and unfortunately, many had slipped my mind.  I blame the inconvenience of having to work, but thank goodness for goodreads!  As I'd been really poor at doing reviews or making any notes during most of last year, it was a bit of a struggle to remember what I'd really been impressed with.

5 star reads included amongst others, a Milly Johnson and a Trisha Ashley, both truly fabulous romantic reads from authors I really love.  There were several by Terry Pratchett (including a few re-reads) which I always enjoy.  The Chanson de l'Ange trilogy fed my phantom obsession for several weeks and although the ending wasn't what I'd envisioned I thoroughly wallowed in my Erik obsession.  I really loved The Rosie Project on audiobook too.

However, (slightly off tune fanfare) my winner for best book of last year is rather predictably Les Miserables!  I've not chosen it to be clever, or pretentious (honestly!) or simply because it is my second favourite musical...but it was one of those books that I'd promised myself that I'd read at some point and when I finally did, (after the big push of the film and planning to see the musical again) I loved it.  No, it's not perfect, it does ramble on and there were a few sections that I found really hard work and irrelevant to the story, but I never skipped over (no matter how tempted on the Napoleonic War bit) and although I took it steady over several months alongside lighter reads, I found it a fulfilling read.  I admit I am still biased and found Cossette was even more irritating and unworthy of the attentions she receives than in the musical (and let's be honest she's pretty "meh" for most of that too!) the story of  Jean Valjean's redemption was engrossing and very moving.  I'll admit it...I sobbed several times before I got to the end.

Introducing...my 30 Day Book Challenge

Apologies for not being original and being a bit behind the door at catching on...but I found this challenge by accident.  There's loads of people on their blogs, facebook etc who've done it (thanks to whoever started it) and it seemed an interesting idea. I thought as I've been a very bad blogger of late it'd also be a bit of a push to make me get back in the habit so I'm going to have a go. I'll be really interested in anyone's views and I hope it might make me remember some old favourites.

Here's the complete challenge:

Day 01 - Best book you read last year
Day 02 - A book that you've read more than 3 times
Day 03 - Your favourite series
Day 04 - Favourite book of your favourite series
Day 05 - A book that makes you happy
Day 06 - A book that makes you sad
Day 07 - Most underrated book
Day 08 - Most overrated book
Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 10 - Favourite classic book
Day 11 - A book you hated
Day 12 - A book you used to love but don’t any more
Day 13 - Your favourite writer
Day 14 - Favourite book of your favourite writer
Day 15 - Favourite male character
Day 16 - Favourite female character
Day 17 - Favourite quote from your favourite book
Day 18 - First "chapter" book you remember reading as a child
Day 19 - Favourite book turned into a movie
Day 20 - Book that makes you laugh out loud
Day 21 - Favourite book from your childhood
Day 22 - Your guilty pleasure
Day 23 - A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 - A book that you wish more people would've read
Day 25 - A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 - A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 - The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 - Favourite title
Day 29 - Favourite book you read in school
Day 30 - Your favourite book of all time

In my mailbox...#10

Can't possibly fill you in on all the buys I've had since my last post.  So here's the latest!

Anyone still out there? Probably not...and I don't blame you.

So, more than twelve months on and so much for my good intentions for 2013.  They just didn't happen...well not on here anyway!
So what have I been doing?  All the usual, really, same as everyone else.  Sadly work and family became bigger priorities and although I have been reading, I've not managed to review.  Goodreads has just been getting star ratings for the last year or so.  I still have a huge TBR list and my kindle is starting to groan with the titles that I just can't resist.

I did manage to read Les Mis and I loved it!  Sobbed like a wuss too towards the end (no surprises there, then!) and I also got to see the show in London again too, which was fabulous.

I've recently become a member of the lovereading review panel too and so am starting to make a greater effort to write up reviews promptly and I hope to get them on here too.

My Les Mis Challenge...

You just can't get away from Les Mis at the moment and I'm really looking forward to getting to see the film when it's released next weekend.
However, I've been a fan of the musical for a long time, seen it in the West End several times and have been meaning to read the book for a while, but it's such a chunkster that I've always put it off and read something lighter instead.  Well 2013 is the year I'm going to do it!!  I've only just found there has been several of the fabulous book blogs/ sites out there that have organised challenges in the past twelve months, but I've missed them (typical) so I'm going it alone...no set finishing time, no pressure, but I've bought the Penguin Classics version for my kindle and will keep going as and when I get the time and inclination.
If anyone would like to join me...please let me know!
I've already made a start and have just completed Book 1 Part 1 about Monseigneur Myriel and my concerns about it being a bit heavy going are unfounded so far and the touches of humour make the saintly M. Myriel a much more realistic and likeable character.