A book I love… Wind in the Willows

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One of the reasons I love this book still is the actual edition: a green cloth-covered hardback with a green paper cover. wind in the willows1 I can remember the excitement at being given a hardback book which in 1969 was expensive. I was more used to devouring as many Famous Five and Secret Seven books as possible that we could pick up secondhand at the school fete: my reading at that age was voracious. wind in the willows3The book was a birthday gift from my parents for my ninth birthday, the birthday greeting inside is written in my elder sister’s neat italic script. wind in the willows2It never dawned on me that the language was old-fashioned – Oddsboddikins! – I just lapped it up. Today the book sits on my bookshelf between Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, and Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame

My Top 5… the Booker winners I re-read, and why

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All lists are completely subjective, and I am not claiming to have read every Booker winner. So this list is a little like a celebrity’s ‘Desert Island Discs’, it has changed in recent years and will no doubt change again. There are more recent Booker winners which I love, Hilary Mantel for example, but have yet to re-read and so strictly they do not belong here. In no particular order, my current Top 5 are:-

AS Byatt Possession Possession The plaiting together of storylines and points of view in two centuries, it showed me how to plot

Yann Martel Life of Pi life of Pi The sheer magical ambition of it, a tiger in a boat

Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children midnight's children The scope, the exotic setting, what a way of recounting the birth of a new country

Penelope Lively Moon Tiger Moon Tiger (2) Perhaps my all-time favourite, for its gentle romance, its clever manipulation of point of view, the handling of death and grief. And she gets the dialogue spot-on too

Peter Carey Oscar and Lucinda oscar and lucinda The first Peter Carey I read, the first of many, and picked up on impulse because it had won the Booker. It introduced me to Australian writers

Which 5 Booker winners do you re-read?

Great opening paragraph 9… ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I’ve changed all the names.”
Kurt Vonnegut JrFrom ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Spies’ by Michael Frayn
‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami
‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr http://wp.me/p5gEM4-eX via @SandraDanby

Great opening paragraph…9

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Slaughterhouse5 - OP
“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I’ve changed all the names.”
‘Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Great opening paragraph 8… ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.”
Carol Birch From ‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ by Carol Birch 

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Guest Cat’ by Takashi Hiraide
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind
‘The Ghost’ by Robert Harris

Read my review of ORPHANS OF THE CARNIVAL, also by Carol Birch.

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara JAMRACH’S MENAGERIE by Carol Birch http://wp.me/p5gEM4-ea via @SandraDanby 

Great opening paragraph 8

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Jamrach's Menagerie“ I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.”
‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’ by Carol Birch

A book I love… Swallows and Amazons

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swallows and amazons What a heady mix: adventures on a lake, sailing, camping on your own island, a battle with a pirate. I did so want to be Nancy, though I admired Titty’s night alone on the island. I eventually went to the Lake District on a school trip, and learned to sail in Filey Bay with my brother. I never fought a pirate though. After this book I read all the other adventures of the Swallows and Amazons, and the Big Six.
‘Swallows and Amazons’ by Arthur Ransome

Great opening paragraph 7… ‘The Big Sleep’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”
Raymond Chandler From ‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler 

Try one of these  #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Jack Maggs’ by Peter Carey
‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell
‘The Secret Agent’ by Joseph Conrad

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler https://wp.me/p5gEM4-8B via @SandraDanby 

Great opening paragraph…7

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The Big Sleep
“It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.”

‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler

Great opening paragraph 6… ‘Goldfinger’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.”
Ian FlemingFrom ‘Goldfinger’ by Ian Fleming

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Murder Room’ by PD James
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
‘Couples’ by John Updike

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara GOLDFINGER by Ian Fleming http://wp.me/p5gEM4-7F via @SandraDanby