day 04 → your favourite book

[fightingthecage]

What is it with this meme and impossibly hard questions? I don't get to read as much as I used to but I used to devour two or three books a week and so many of them are amazing.

Ugh. OK, I'm going to go with my favourite book by my favourite author - Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. It was the first one of his that I read, when I was thirteen. I'd been intruiged because on a band tour of Germany that summer, one of the guys near me and was frequently laughing out loud. Someone asked him what he was laughing at and he said, 'Dod-a-foodle cock!' which is, as you'll know if you've read it, one of the utterences from a dyslexic cockerel. I knew I had to get it and I think I expected it to be like that all the way through - but it wasn't, it was better.

I remember it being quite difficult to get into for the first few pages and I wasn't sure if I'd finish it. And then, suddenly, I was completely hooked. I adored it and I must have read it about twenty times now. It's travelled around the world with me; quite obviously too, because my copy is falling apart these days. But I still love it and if I ever need a pick-me-up, I turn to it and it always makes me feel better.

Night Watch is another Pratchett favourite. The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings too - not because the writing is fantastic, because it isn't sometimes, but the world he's created and the storyline kept me living there for months while I devoured all ten and then the accompanying novels.

And an honourable mention to the one I am currently reading - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I can't recommend this enough. It's a story based on the facts known about the life of Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry VIII's closest advisors and it brings that whole time period to the most amazing life. I .ove it and am deliberately reading it slowly so that it'll last ages.

Comments

[mmexlibris]

Oh god Night Watch is my FAVOURITE Pterry. Someone is bogarting Vimes in Mways, and I wish they would bring him in. (VIMES!)

I'm a Douglas Adams fangirl. I carried a tattered copy of HHGG around like it was my bible in high school. I think there's more gentle wisdom in Pterry, though.

[fightingthecage.livejournal.com]

HHGG!! I should have mentioned that - also one of my favourite ever books. God, it makes me laugh so hard. I read it so often I almost got sick of it because when you can quote the first four books almost word for word, it gets old. But I always go back to it because it's just that awesome; I was giggling to myself over the name Slartibartfast just this morning in my kitchen, as it happens. *high fives for mutual awesome taste in books*

[mmexlibris]

~high fives right back atcha~

We rock, clearly.