brace yourselves
i like my books, i do.

first off, no one has mentioned shakespeare so far. what's up with that? possibly the most celebrated figure in literature and for a very good reason. macbeth is one of the best things i have ever read. even gcse english couldn't kill it off. you can never go wrong with a bit of the bard.

like many other b3ta members, a mention to the bible. when i was small, nothing terrified me more than the graphic illustrations in the my first bible we owned. i could understand a picture of the crucifix as this image is so significant in christianity but the pictures of wicked jezebel being pushed to her death out of a window, cain smashing abel around the head and job strewn across the pavement, covered in painful sores, all in painstaking detail, seemed unnecessary. needless to say, they stuck in my five-year-old head.

the first proper book i read was the hunchback of notre dame. what attracted my attention to it was that it had the same name as one of my favourite disney films at the time (with the gargoyles). i was only eight but a week in the countryside surrounding leicester had me desperately grappling for things to do. its actually still one of the best books i read even though im sure a lot of it went over my head. not as good as the film but yeah!

my favourite book is the master and the magherita by mikhail bulgakov. not particularly any story behind this. just yanked it off the bookshelf and read in one sitting. has basically everything in it. absolutely surreal and brilliant. basically, the devil and his henchmen arrive in Soviet Russia and start messing around with everyone's heads. old bulgakov had a bad time of it as well as he was unpublished during his lifetime and banned as well as the first manuscript being burnt and having to be rewritten from memory.

the last book i read was brighton rock by graham green. fantastic.

the worst book i have read is the wasp factory by iain banks. its good, yeah. i just cant read it again. couldnt deal with the bit with the baby. nightmarish. felt nasty for ages afterwards, actually ill but that could be because im a weakling... particularly with gory stuff.

first to say that the bell jar was just ... nothing. didn't really get anything from it. surprised it hadnt come up already. sorry guys. or lord of the rings. hours of my life im not getting back.
(ladyintheradiator, Fri 16 May 2008, 1:37, 2 replies)

that bit in the wasp factory is pretty gross
but the book is one of the finest examples of a twisted imagination you can get

utterly fantastic, as is most of Banks stuff, sci fi or not
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 16 May 2008, 8:42, closed)

Oh my good God!
I have never ever heard of anyone else who has read The Master and The Margarita... I absolutely adore that book.

My favourite Shakespeare is Hamlet, by a country mile.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 16 May 2008, 13:26, closed)