What book do you think should be made into a movie? And do you have any suggestions for the producers?
Or, What book do you think should NEVER be made into a movie?
I think the book I finished reading at the weekend would make a great movie. The book is The Gargoyle
Another book that would be good as a movie is Kate Atkinson’s When Will There be Good News?
Today’s BTT question:
We’ve all seen the lists, we’ve all thought, ‘I should really read that someday,’ but for all of us, there are still books on ‘The List’ that we haven’t actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they’re fabulous. Even though we know that we’ll like them. Or that we’ll learn from them. Or just that they’re supposed to be worthy. We just €¦ haven’t gotten around to them yet.
What’s the best book that YOU haven’t read yet?
Quite a difficult question to answer. First of all I just could not say any book is the “best” book I’ve read, so as for the “best” book I haven’t read – well I’ve no idea!
But there are many books that I know are considered to be “good” books that I’ve not read. A few spring to mind straight away:
There must be many more!
I don’t have a preference for either hardbacks (hardcovers) or paperbacks, although I buy mainly paperbacks because they are cheaper. Hardbacks can be a problem because of their weight and size, particularly when reading in bed, although paperbacks can also be huge and unwieldy and some are so difficult to hold open because they’re so tightly bound. Another reason for buying paperbacks is that most paperbacks are much easier to carry around than hadbacks and I like to take a book with me just in case there’s an opportunity to read.
I don’t really like illustrations in novels, but I think they’re essential in non-fiction. Can you imagine an art or travel book with illustrations? Biographies too are much better with photographs or drawings.
I’m not a book collector in the sense of wanting to buy first editions. I can’t really see the attraction or why they are desirable. It’s the contents of a book that interests me not whether it formed part of the first printing of the first edition and anyway there seems to be so much interpretation of what exactly is a first edition.
I have just a few books signed by the author and that does always seem to make the book that little bit more special, more personal and more valuable to me.
This week’s question is suggested by Kat:
I recently got new bookshelves for my room, and I’m just loving them. Spent the afternoon putting up my books and sharing it on my blog . One of my friends asked a question and I thought it would be a great BTT question. So from Tina & myself, we’d like to know ‘How do you arrange your books on your shelves? Is it by author, by genre, or you just put it where it falls on?’
Storage is a problem. I haven’t got enough space for all my books so they are double shelved where possible and also in piles in different rooms. I have fiction arranged a-z by author surname in bookcases in the dining room and I keep the unread books in a separate bookcase in the lounge. This seemed like a good idea when I started it but doesn’t work because there is no room to transfer them to the other bookcases when I’ve read them. So now that bookcase is a mixture of books I’ve read and books to-be-read. I also have one bookcase mainly containing children’s books in a spare bedroom – not arranged in any order – just as I put them on the shelves. These are a mixture of my own books from childhood, including some that were my parents’ childhood books and some from my sister who collected secondhand books.
I arrange non-fiction a-z by subject and within that a-z by author surname. These are mainly in bookcases lining one wall in the hall at the back of the house with some on two small bookcases on the landing. One of these is the bookcase my Dad made me for my bedroom when I was about 8. It doesn’t look anything special – just a three shelf wooden bookcase he painted white, but I could never part with it. It’s looking a bit the worse for wear now. I keep a mixture of books in it – including literature, Shakespeare plays etc, biographies, and history books.
The books in piles are a mixture. They are in most rooms – I’m not very tidy. Some are books I’ve looked at and read a chapter or a few pages before deciding whether to start them properly, some are books I’m reading and others are books I’ve read and not put away because I either want to re-read them or write about them and some because there’s no room to put them on the bookshelves.
Suggested by Barbara H.:
A comment on someone else’s BTT question this week inspired this question:
Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?
The authors’ blogs I read are listed in my Blogroll. They are Angela Young’s blog Writing, Life and the Universe and Martin Edward’s blog, Do You Write Under Your Own Name. Angela isn’t writing hers right now as she’s busy on her second book. I can’t remember how I came across her blog but it was before I read her first book, Speaking of Love. I found Martin’s blog after I read one of his Lake District Mystery books, The Arsenic Labyrinth because I was interested in the location of the book and wondering if the arsenic labyrinth actually did exist. I used to read Susan Hill’s blog, but she stopped writing it a few months ago, which is a shame. I really can’t remember how I found out about her blog, but I did enjoy reading it.
I read these blogs for the same reason I read other blogs – they interest me as they are about books and writing.
Suggested by Simon Thomas:
Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse – a biography has made you love an author more?
I like reading biographies and autobiographies, particularly of authors, so I’ve read quite a lot. None of them have changed my mind about the books they’ve written. I may not like what I’ve read about them but that has not affected my enjoyment of their books. There may be things about them, or alleged about them that I don’t like – I’m thinking of Lewis Carroll here – but even so I can separate that from what they’ve written.
Reading some biographies or memoirs has increased my enjoyment of an author’s books, for example reading Karen Armstrong’s The Spiral Staircase, which recounts her spritual journey from a convent to an academic career, makes me appreciate the honesty in her writing not only about Christianity, but also Judaism and Islam.
BooksPlease 