Guest Post: Turtle's Picks of Favorite Books

15.  The Magic Thief

Sarah Prineas

       

                         14. The Cricket in Time Square

George Seldon

                                                                                                13.  Ungifted

Gordan Korman

      

                                         12. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

     

11. Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Dafoe

     

   10. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Robert O'Brien

    

                                                                                                9. FableHaven

Brandon Mull

     

                                           8. Percy Jackson series 

Rick Riordan

                                       

                                    

                                                                                                                            

7. Spirit Animals

Brandon Mull

                                                 6. Treasure Hunters

James Patterson

   

                                                                                                                                       

5. The Neverending Story

Michael Ende

                                                        

                                                   4. Planet Tad

Tim Carvell

   

3. The Chronicles of Narnia

C.S. Lewis

  

                                          2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

Jeff Kinney

1. Harry Potter series

J.K. Rowling

   

These books (listed above) are some of my all-time favorites but if I were to list all of them I would use a lot of paper. So I tried to let you in on my 15 favorites. If you have not read this selection of books you can and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

 HONORABLE MENTIONS

I simply had to include an "Honorable Mention" section as there are far 

too many books to choose from!

Jules Verne

 

Lewis Carroll

                                                                                                                             

Rudyard Kipling
 

Lisa McMann

The Magic of Robert Louis Stevenson

When asked what my favourite book is these days I would have to confess that I don't actually have any single book which I would claim as the holder of that title. There are simply far too many books which I love to pick any single book out and set it above all others.

I could however list authors whose books never fail to enthral and entertain. Among them, and in no particular order, would be Terry Pratchett and his Discworld novels, Ian Rankin and the Rebus tales, and yes I was heavily influenced to set in my books in Edinburgh through him although 250 years earlier than Inspector Rebus, Lyndsey Davis and her wonderful Roman mysteries with Marcus Didius Falco, Irvine Welsh, Wilbur Smith whether it is his historical fiction or the 'modern' tales set in more recent times, Michael Crichton, Nigel Tranter and many, many others.

Now if I was to add the independent authors who I have discovered over the last few years since allowing myself to explore the hidden gems allowed by KDP/Amazon the list grows at an alarming rate. A very brief list of new authors that I particularly enjoy would include names such as Trish Marie Dawson, KS Haigwood, Kevin Hammond, Shiralyn J Lee, Bon Rose, Lucinda Brant, and the wonderfully talented authors who contribute to this blog. These are only a few which I would recommend but there are dozens more out there to be discovered and loved.

Right! So much for these days. What about when I was younger?

This is a much easier question to answer as one author stands out head and shoulders above all others for me when I was a child. Robert Louis Stevenson. The son of a family better known for its lighthouse designs than literature, he was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and died tragically young at the age of only 44 on the Samoan island of Upolu. While his family built beacons to guide the sailor safely home RLS wrote books which still serve as beacons guiding the reader to fantastic adventures.

I was given a hardback copy of Treasure Island when I was eight years old and despite the plain red faux leather cover it appealed to me straight away. Illustrated with several colour plates depicting pirates and old sailing ships I wanted to dive straight in. And that is exactly what I did. Every book deserves a great opening line and Treasure Island has one of the very best ever set down -

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen 

having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, 

from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, 

and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, 

I take up my pen in the year of grace 17__ and go back to the time when 

my father kept the Admiral Benbow Inn and the 

brown old seaman with the sabre cut first took up his lodging under our roof.

Instantly you are placed there in the tavern with the mysterious scarred sailor and wonder what the story can possibly be about this island and its unknown treasure. Treasure Island is one of those books which all writers of historical fiction aspire to match. Its cast of characters have entered the popular imagination and there can be few people who can't instantly picture the figure of Long John Silver in their own mind whenever they hear his name. The book has been adapted for the big screen an incredible number of times from Robert Newton's masterful portrayal of Silver right through to the Muppets adventures on the island and even on spaceships in the depths of space. This is in no small measure due to sheer number of stand-out scenes which fill the book from cover to cover.

Yes, if you had asked me at the age of ten what was the best book ever written I would have replied Treasure Island without even pausing for thought...but then I discovered Kidnapped!

Suddenly the tales of English country gentlemen and dastardly pirates in the Caribbean paled in comparison with a full blooded adventure set right here in my own country, Scotland! For probably the first time I was reading about places I knew and had visited personally in something other than a history text book at school. Edinburgh Castle, South Queensferry, Hawes Inn, Culross, Rannoch Moor! These were all places I had visited but suddenly I was looking at them in a wholly new light. No longer were they simply beautiful places to visit for a day trip in a car but they lived and breathed on the page before my eyes.

The adventures of David Balfour after his betrayal by the villainous Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws soared before my ardent eyes with the grace and power of a Scottish eagle over the high mountains of the Highlands. The heroic, if flawed, Alan Breck Stewart and his mentions of the murderous battle of Culloden only drew me further in and suddenly I began to view Scottish history not as something dry and dull which my teacher droned at us in class but as something vital, something alive and which burned with passion and real flesh and blood. Stevenson was one of the authors who creates a spectacle so vividly with his words that you can feel yourself shivering on the cold shores of an island off the west coast of Scotland or breathing the peat smoke of the fire in Cluny's Cage and then hiding below a gorse bush on the wilderness of Rannoch Moor while a party of English Dragoons scour the landscape for you.

Other than the scenes set in the majestic Scottish Highlands the scenes which had the greatest appeal for me were those set in Edinburgh. Auld Reekie is a city which lives in my heart and that draws me back to her embrace time after time. Some may see her as a being like a woman with an elderly face that relies on the days of her youth to attract admirers but all those who have experienced the pleasure of her company and come to know her can see that beneath the facade she is still beautiful, still young and vibrant, with a lust for life and a passion for all that life has to offer. To walk the streets of Edinburgh is to walk in the footsteps of history. From Robert the Bruce to Mary, Queen of Scots, to Bonnie Prince Charlie, to Walter Scott and Stevenson himself, you will see the sights and breath the same air as they did. From the tourist hotspots on the Royal Mile to the hidden gems in quiet backstreets there is so much she offers to both the local and visitor alike. That is why I love her and place her above all others.

So there you have it. My contribution to what our inspirations and favourite books are. If you have read either or both of these books I am sure you will have enjoyed them every bit as much as I have repeatedly and if you haven't, then I would urge you to do so at the earliest opportunity!

For book give-aways and more general chat please visit us at our Facebook page. 

Stuart Laing is the author of The Robert Young of Newbiggin Mysteries.

 His blog can be followed at 

stuartslaing.wordpress.com

Inspiration in Reading

--by D Michelle Gent

I remember being inspired to read by my granddad. He would sit me on his knee in the back room of the house. There was a delightful book that I particularly loved. It was about an infant Pegasus and the adventures he got into. I can’t recall the title of the book but I do remember vividly the enjoyment and delight at Story Time.

My love for books must have been born there I think, and it developed and grew from then on. Stig of the Dump, Smith, Watership Down and Alice in Wonderland all stick in my mind as books I read, re-read and adored. The Chronicles of Narnia can be read over and over without becoming boring or jaded and I moved on in my tastes as I grew older.

I would never be without a book in my hand, even at the table. “Michelle, put that book down while you’re eating!” was a familiar instruction from my mother.

Little Women, What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next were all devoured, as were the horror anthologies and history encyclopaedias – it didn’t matter to me what genre a book was, as long as I could get my hands on it and read, read, READ!

In my teenage years, I remember reading James Herbert’s The Rats trilogy and my fascination for all things horror was given a foundation on which to build. Stephen King, Guy N. Smith, Dean Koontz were all my ‘friends’ in the books they wrote and I shunned movies in favour of the far superior film that played in my mind’s eye as I read their stories.

I stole my dad’s copies of Jaws, The Deep and, most unwisely: The Exorcist. I became adept at knowing which books I could ‘borrow’ without getting caught – the ones on the bottom of his ‘To Be Read’ pile were the obvious ones to read first; he’d not miss them, especially if he was still in the middle of a book. I had far more opportunity to read than he did, so I could be certain of returning it before he’d finished his – I also became adept at reading without damaging the paperback spine so there would be very little evidence of anyone having read it before he got to it. I was very grateful if the book was a borrowed one and had already been read.

********

                                              

I suppose I should be thankful that he liked to read horror rather than sport!

That was when my need for a book that satisfied my desire for perfection began, I think. No-one had written the book I really REALLY wanted to read and eventually, I set about writing my own.

Then on to my adult years where I could (and did) buy my own books to read. I had spates of phases where I’d buy absolutely everything I could lay my hands on in a particular theme – zombies, vampires, anthologies, ‘survivalist’ novels – and one bizarre phase on those books where you made the adventure up yourself by choosing the direction you went in, flipped to a specified page, skipping chunks of ‘unneeded’ story (what a waste!) and only reading that part which was relevant to your decision.

My penchant for reading everything and anything came to an abrupt end when I read novel after novel of books that disappointed me and left me wondering if this was the best they could do. Formulaic, easily predicted endings left me cold.

As for which book is my favourite, which inspires me most... well, that would be like asking which pet is my favourite – I don’t have just one, I can’t have just one, it’s impossible to choose. I can’t even choose which genre is my absolute favourite – historical fiction, historical fact, alternate history, horror... I can’t do it!

D Michelle Gent’s blog can be found here and book reviews here. Michelle's publisher can be found at Gingernut Books.

Jayne's Corner: Jayne recommends some favorite titles

Following on from my post last month on Jayne's Corner, I thought I would recommend some books I have recently read and enjoyed very much.

Non Fiction 

The  Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family by Susan Higginbotham

This was a very clear, well researched, and easily understandable book about the family of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV of England. I found I really got to know this very interesting family and very much enjoyed reading their story.

My next choice is Richard III: The Road to Leicester by Amy Licence.

It tells the story of Richard III and how his remains were found under the car park in Leicester. It is easy to understand and the reader can tell the author has researched her facts very well. 

                                                   

Historical Fiction

My first choice is Lionheart by Sharon Penman.

This is such a well-written book and shows the author's usual eye for the detail of the time and her authentic facts. It can take a while to really get into it, but once you do then you are hooked. I am now waiting eagerly for the follow up: A King's Ransom, which should be out in April 2014.

                                               

My next choice is The Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham.

This is about Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham (friend of Richard III) and Katherine Woodville, his wife. The author has obviously researched her subject very well. The writing flows and makes it easy to read. 

                                                           

I have also just re-read Game of Kings which is the first in the fabulous Lymond series by Dorothy Dunnett.

This tells the story of Scottish nobleman Frances Crawford and his journey in trying to find his heritage and love. It is set in Scotland in the time of Mary Queen of Scots' childhood and is beautifully written and very well researched.The author's love of Scotland clearly shines through the book and the series. 

                                                                 

Regency Romance

My next choice is Douglas, Lord of Heartache by Grace Burrowes.

This is set in Regency England and is number eight in the Lonely Lords series, which is a spin off from her Windham Family books. I fell in love with Douglas when I first met him in the initial book of The Windham Family saga and couldn't wait for him to have his own story told.

Douglas Allen, Viscount Amery, a disillusioned lord with family secrets falls in love with Guinevere Hollister, a widow  who manages one of his  estates. She has  a secret which she will do anything to hold on to.

I love this book and the story held my interest right from the beginning.

                                                                 

My second choice is My Lady Spy by Rebecca King, number three in the Star Elite series. 

This series is about a group of agents in Regency England and the women who tame them. In this book Portia is facing marriage, arranged by her father, to a boring staid man much older than herself. She just wants a last adventure before this happens. She stumbles into witnessing a brutal murder and comes across Archie, a member of Star Elite, who saves her and then sets out to protect her. He is not what he seems to be and she is not sure if she can trust him. Their relationship grows despite all of this.

I loved the way this book was written and how the other members of Star Elite helped Archie out. The writing flowed all the way through the novel.     

                                                            

I do hope you have enjoyed reading about my recommendations and may be tempted to read one or more of them.

Lisl's Bits and Bobs: The Never Ending Story

…is something I have always loved to do, and there have always been books in my environment. I remember books collected by my mother on shelves in a family room, books I sought out at an early age, but of which I have only distant memories. To my grown-up mind, these books are quaint and perhaps old-fashioned, but I suppose then they were modern and certainly I was fascinated by them. I was very small, perhaps four, and remember my mother's delight each time I brought them out. 

She herself was a voracious reader, though she tried to limit my spending from getting out of control. As a night-shift nurse she often slept during the day and I, older by then, would creep into her room at lunchtime with my filled-out book club order form from school. I would say my hellos, ask her to sign, then soothe her to sleep once more before I was back off to class. A couple of weeks later she would get the bill and marvel at why she allowed me to spend so much money. In her continuing education for nursing, she often took night classes, and each week would end her night with a visit to the campus book shop where she picked out and brought home a treat for me. One of these was C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. If I already enjoyed reading then, this book expanded my passion not only with a wonderful story--for I loved magic--but also a young girl a lot like me. I also remember loving another class-night treat, Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

My father read at almost every spare moment, but even that must not have been enough, for he was up and dressed at about 04:00 each day and could be found sitting at the dining room table with his tea and open book. Every day of my childhood--even at weekends--he was at the table for two hours in the morning reading. He, too, brought books back for me, often from church book sales or shops he happened upon, and since he walked a lot, he seemed to find many of these. I recall great presentation of a hardbound book with plastic covering, ripped and crackling, and held in great esteem by my father. I devoured Francis Marion: Swamp Fox of the Revolution; it and my father's great interest in the American Revolution must surely have influenced my own later interest in history, including weaponry and how wars have been conducted across eras.

I still remember our school's little library (although then it was vast) and chose books about a talking crocodile, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Cricket in Times Square, Treasure Island, and how I loved the Beverly Cleary books! Henry Huggins and two neighborhood children, Beezus and her annoying younger sister Ramona, who had their own books but crossed paths with Henry in the various stories, gave me such joy for many hours. I can still remember the main character in Otis Spofford finally getting his "come-uppance" not by any classroom rules or punishments, but in the more natural method of social consequences. Still I liked him, perhaps in the same way I did Edmund Pevensie of Narnia, as mean as he was to his sister, Lucy.

My auntie's house had a bookshelf upstairs, which somehow managed to always have books of interest to me, despite that my cousins were all much older. My first Trixie Belden mystery came from these shelves; another young detective in the Nancy Drew series also greatly appealed and I remember being envious of my friend's full collections.

I also immensely loved words, individually as well as as part of a larger passage or work, and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland gave my brain tremendous exercise, especially when I discovered The Annotated Alice. I was fascinated by Carroll's mathematical genius and the way he applied the subject to language, puzzles, logic and games of many kinds. One year I was gifted The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll and named my two hamsters (also a gift) Sylvie and Bruno, after the characters who lent their names to the story's title. Sylvie and Bruno--the pets--actually were silver with white (Sylvie) and brown and white. Unfortunately, I knew little of how hamsters interacted with each other and despite my fussy care of them, Bruno attacked Sylvie and did her in. The literary characters were much more placid and I made up silly rhymes in the style of their tale, so much did I like the pair.

Then I came upon a lobster quadrille

Who looked to me and said, "Be still.

Would you be free to take some tea

With no one else except for me?"

I don't recall how old I was when I began to read Dickens, but agreed straightaway when a high school teacher told someone, "If you are looking to increase your vocabulary, read Dickens." I loved his characters' names and often engaged for hours in the goings-on within their lives. My favorite became Bleak House, the intricate details of which I frequently discussed with my mother, whose own oral stories and historical information played a large role in my absorption of information. Through her I grew up hearing Arthurian tales and she drove me from one library branch to another for about a one-year period, as I looked up and sought out every book I could possibly find on the topic. One book in particular whose title I no longer recall, told the tale of Tristan and Iseult in a way no other yarn on the pair did: I spoke of it for years afterwards and even got some of my older relatives to read it.

The summer before school one year I was given a list of books to read, one of which was Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave. It may have been the influence of my Italian friend's monthly romance books, but crazily I didn't want to read it. My mother pleaded with me to do and purchased the entire trilogy, despite my protestations, setting them on my night table shelf. On a weekend afternoon I sank to the floor in the process of dusting and happened to catch sight of the second book's cover, which enraptured me. It held me in its sway and I ended up reading the entire series. (The Wicked Day came later, as I hadn't at first realised a fourth existed.) My previous passion for this era re-ignited and I also began to read more about the Middle Ages. In history class we learned about 1066, naturally, but somehow I never read much about it on my own. Also, required like other pupils to specialize in one historical era, I chose World War II, and later was deeply moved by the German university student protest group The White Rose, which I read about in books such as A Noble Treason and At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl.

It was about this time I was also moved by Willa Cather's short story, "Paul's Case," which I currently own in the volume The Troll Garden, a collection of her selected works. As I set out on my own I continued to read and started to collect more books, including titles not ordinarily within my range of attention, such as Len Deighton's Hook, Line, Sinker and Game, Set, Match spy trilogies. I also started to read le Carré and Forsyth: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Secret Pilgrim, The Day of the Jackal, The Devil's Alternative and The Odessa File. Though it has been some years since I have read these last titles, I recall them with fondness not only because I enjoyed the stories woven within them, but also because each one and others led me to other topics I was hungry to learn about: history, cultures and languages to name but some. 

In more recent years I have been reading a lot of educational and, lately, historical fiction. By chance several years back I happened to have a conversation with someone, quite superficial really, about Richard III, and we discussed what we'd all been told in school. I decided to re-read a bit about him but, unsatisfied despite having intended to read the one book and be done with it, went on to read more, fiction and non-fiction. One of my favorite fictional accounts is Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour. 

Perhaps these prepared me for what the future would bring, for as I continued on, by now reading a lot of "boy books" given my interest in boys in education and the way their reading skills tend to taper off and fall below those of girls by about fifth grade--many schools still teach heavily biased towards a female style of learning and ignore the needs of boys--I also found a flame still burned within me for the  histories my father had led me to, and also the Merlin of my childhood, who also piques the interest of my young son. When the opportunity presented itself I read a book I might not have at another time, given my curious hesitation to immerse myself into the time of the Conquest: Paula Lofting's Sons of the Wolf. This book was and remains so important for me because Lofting was able to persuade me into the era as no other author had, and I cared immensely about the characters. Moreover, the novel opened up my world yet again; another turning point was reached in which I learned I could explore a new time and be fascinated (not frightened) all over again, continue to learn as I believe we are meant to in this life, and utilize that growth to shape what else waits ahead. 

My boy also has loved and/or led me to many wonderful books, either because he enjoyed them or he thought I would: Harry Potter, which I'd already read and enjoyed, and he begged me to speed up the learning to read so he could read them on his own; The Alchemist and the rest of the Nicholas Flamel series; Skinny Bones; Dying to Meet You (we both dissolved in laugher trying to read this aloud). Turtle also is rather adept at finding books likely to interest me. Several I've got now in my TBR include: Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality; Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain; and Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue and the Heresy Trial of His Mother.

Perhaps books fascinate me so because in addition to the tales they tell--and humans through history seem innately to like nothing more than a great story--they have such a profound effect on the mind, part of us that scientists have never truly been able to study.The memories our and others' stories stimulate, or events we associate with them, feelings and emotions they elicit, all of this in various ways tell the stories of our lives—even if not completely, though in turn creating yet more stories, linking us to each other. Given the ongoing nature of lifetime learning and constant hunger and reach for new books to read, they become part of our own tales, indeed each a never ending story.

I discovered this title in a US East Coast library, 

initially unaware it was part of a series. I later 

discovered several more series by this author, 

though these tales of a detective in a small, 

landlocked African country remain my favorite.

Do you recognize any of the books mentioned? Do they remind you of other forgotten faves? Do any appeal to your interests? Would you recommend any to Lisl and friends? Write it in below! Facebook users may also comment here.

Lisl can also be found at her blog, before the second sleep, where she writes about anything from her love of math to book reviews and children's literature.