You're a beautiful woman probably...

On ThePickards blog, Jack Pickard suggests we should "name fifteen books that [you] have read that will always stick with [you], and also do the same thing for films that [you've] seen. In each case, we don’t have to be talking about favourites, merely stuff that has stuck with you for some reason." I've put the books into rough chronological order based on when I read them, rather than when they were published. 1. The Silver Chair - C S Lewis 2. A Passage to India - E M Forster 3. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein 4. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend 5. The Shining - Stephen King 6. Caution! Inflammable! - Thomas N Scortia 7. The Front Runner - Patricia Nell Warren 8. The Death of Grass - John Christopher 9. Urn Burial - Robert Westall 10. The World According to Garp - John Irving 11. A Smile in his Lifetime - Joseph Hansen 12. The Cider House Rules - John Irving 13. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling 14. Da...

I finished reading the final Harry Potter novel last week (possibly the last person with any interest in the series to read it). As I've got a Flexi Day off work today, I thought I'd share my opinions. In case anyone reading this still plans to read the book, I'll try to avoid giving any "spoilers". I thought the book was good value, and an appropriate end to the series. I've now read them all, of course, and enjoyed every one with the possible exception of number 5 ( The Order of the Phoenix ). Books 1 to 4 were all great fun although - as many viewers have pointed out - the darker side got more prominent as Harry grew a little older. Phoenix may have coincided with the peak of J K's wealth, or a feeling of security, complacency or whatever - or it may have just been that her publishers got so overawed by her success that they didn't dare prune 30% off the book's length. The consensus (with which I agree) seems to be that drastic editing was what...