It's been doing the rounds on the internet courtesy of the BBC. The only trouble is that I believe it misses off a lot of superb books at the expense of some dire books that everyone assumes are classics but no-one actually reads. Here is my list:
1. Dune - Frank Herbert
2. Silas Marner - George Elliott
3. Diary of a nobody - Weedon Grossmith
4. Lord of the rings - JRR Tolkien
5. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
6. The magic faraway tree - Enid Blyton
7. Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
8. Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
9. I am Legend - Richard Matheson
10. Flow my tears, the Policeman said - Philip K. Dick
11. Ringworld - Larry Niven
12. The Railway children - Edith Nesbit
13. Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
14. Jingo - Terry Pratchett
15. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
16. The stars my destination - Alfred Bester
17. Pavane - Keith Roberts
18. The city and the stars - Arthur C. Clarke
19. Missee Lee - Arthur Ransome
20. Five dialogues - Plato
21. Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
22. The fifth elephant - Terry Pratchett
23. The enchanted wood - Enid Blyton
24. Rogue Male - Geoffrey Household
25. Animal Farm - George Orwell
26. Redwall - Brian Jacques
27. Cannibal Adventure - Willard Price
28. Magic Kingdom for sale; sold! - Terry Brooks
29. Joe Millard - The good, the bad and the ugly
30. The thirty nine steps - John Buchan
31. Fanny hill - John Cleland
32. Heir to the empire - Timothy Zahn
33. Five go off to camp - Enid Blyton
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Do androids dream of electric sheep? - Philip K. Dick
36. Mars - Ben Bova
37. Sphere - Michael Crichton
38. Christine - Stephen King
39. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
40. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
41. Magician - Raymond E. Feist
42. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
43. Coot Club - Arthur Ransome
44. Night watch - Terry Pratchett
45. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
46. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
47. Moonfleet - J. Meade Falkner
48. It - Stephen King
49. Red storm Rising - Tom Clancy
50. The Lion the witch and the wardrobe - CS Lewis
51. War of the worlds - HG Wells
52. Blood Music - Greg Bear
53. The Space Merchants - Frederick Pohl
54. 20,000 leagues under the sea - Jules Verne
55. 2010, Odyssey two - Arthur C. Clarke
56. Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
57. Hunt for red October - Tom Clancy
58. The ipcress file - Len Deighton
59. Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams
60. A tale of two cities - Charles Dickens
61. Voyage of the Dawntreader - CS Lewis
62. SS-GB - Len Deighton
63. The time machine - HG Wells
64. 1984 - George Orwell
65. Romeo & Juliet - William Shakespeare
66. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
67. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
68. And quiet flows the don - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
69. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
70. Wind in the willows - Kenneth Grahame
71. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
74. Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
75. Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
76. Orlando - Virginia Woolf
77. Heidi - Johanna Spyri
78. Around the world in 80 days - Jules Verne
79. Behold the man - Michael Moorcock
80. The man in the high castle - Philip K. Dick
81. Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome
82. Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy
83. Infinity welcomes careful drivers - Grant Naylor
84. Gulliver’s travels - Jonathan Swift
85. The adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
86. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
87. The box of delights - John Masefield
88. The silver chair - CS Lewis
89. We can remember it for you wholesale - Philip K. Dick
90. House Atreides - Brian Herbert
91. Mossflower - Brian Jacques
92. Duncton Wood - William Horwood
93. Volcano Adventure - Willard Price
94. Fear and Trembling - Søren Kierkegaard
95. Feet of clay - Terry Pratchett
96. Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
97. Dialogues concerning the natural history of religion - David Hume
98. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
99. Phantom of the opera - Gaston Leroux
100.Of mice and men - John Steinbeck
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
BHTS in WH Smiths
I have discovered that WH Smiths now stock my book. I must go and see if I can actually find a copy on the shelves...
Clicky on the link.
Clicky on the link.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
The Ikea maze.
Dear Ikea,
As much as I appreciate the thought that must have gone into making all of your stores a labyrinth-like maze, I know what I want and I just want to get to where I pay for it. No matter how hard you try, I will not be impulse buying duvets or cutlery canteens. In future, I shall happily use the fire exits to reach the tills rather than be trapped like a lab rat looking for its next food pellet.
Really your store design is infuriating, and you might want to put consideration into giving an option for people who know what they want to just bloody well go straight to the till/warehouse area and buy it. Do not presume that directing me on a two mile walk through three floors of random stuff with no visible means of escape will enthuse me in any way.
Yours, Jenny
As much as I appreciate the thought that must have gone into making all of your stores a labyrinth-like maze, I know what I want and I just want to get to where I pay for it. No matter how hard you try, I will not be impulse buying duvets or cutlery canteens. In future, I shall happily use the fire exits to reach the tills rather than be trapped like a lab rat looking for its next food pellet.
Really your store design is infuriating, and you might want to put consideration into giving an option for people who know what they want to just bloody well go straight to the till/warehouse area and buy it. Do not presume that directing me on a two mile walk through three floors of random stuff with no visible means of escape will enthuse me in any way.
Yours, Jenny
Monday, 4 April 2011
BBC/2 Entertain poor judgement
An open letter to the BBC/2 Entertain after I discovered their attempts to package a new Doctor Who release exclusively in a box set with a prior release, thus trying to rip-off fans making them buy two copies of the same DVD.
I was deeply disappointed to learn that in a crass money-grubbing move, the BBC/2 Entertain has packaged the forthcoming Doctor Who release 'Terror of the Autons' with a duplicate copy of 'Spearhead from Space' in this box set. As a long time Doctor Who fan I resent this blatant attempt to charge me for a second copy of 'Spearhead from space' that I am not interested in. Enhanced extras are never worth buying a DVD twice and I, along no doubt with many other fans, will not be buying this release on a point of principal. Judging by the comments appearing on internet sites across the internet, I am not alone in not appreciating this attempt to rip-off fans. I would therefore strongly urge you to release 'Terror of the Autons' separately from a priorly released title.
The fans are not amused.
I was deeply disappointed to learn that in a crass money-grubbing move, the BBC/2 Entertain has packaged the forthcoming Doctor Who release 'Terror of the Autons' with a duplicate copy of 'Spearhead from Space' in this box set. As a long time Doctor Who fan I resent this blatant attempt to charge me for a second copy of 'Spearhead from space' that I am not interested in. Enhanced extras are never worth buying a DVD twice and I, along no doubt with many other fans, will not be buying this release on a point of principal. Judging by the comments appearing on internet sites across the internet, I am not alone in not appreciating this attempt to rip-off fans. I would therefore strongly urge you to release 'Terror of the Autons' separately from a priorly released title.
The fans are not amused.
All over the house » Archive » Changing the clocks
I usually forget about the clocks, and have been known to still be on BST for a few days into GMT. I find the idea of an MP having to creep into the commons to avoid waking the snoozing politicians quite fun (Looking at you, Ken Clarke...)
All over the house » Archive » Changing the clocks
Preston debrief
The signing at Preston Waterstones went really well and it was a good job that I took with me a load of extra books as the shop ran out of stock by early afternoon. We used more than half of the ones that I brought. Top tip for authors doing signings: take extra books with you, because there will be more than one occasion where they come in handy! I was also informed whilst there that the books have been selling pretty well in the time since the last signing back in January. It looks like Preston is a good outlet for my books! By the time I next go back there I'm hoping it might be in the first few weeks of release of the next book and that momentum will have built even more.
After the signing I headed over to some friends' house and chilled out for the evening. It was only walking distance from the Waterstones. It made a change to not have to get the hell out of Dodge right after a signing. I got to finally watch for the first time ever the film 'Predator 2' which is another of those oft talked about films that I seem to have missed until now. It wasn't as good as the first film, but I still enjoyed it. We ended up having quite a fun evening and didn't get to bed until the early hours of the morning.
Sunday allowed a leisurely return trip to Bolton at around lunchtime. I would like to say that I used the afternoon to do something really fun, but instead I cleaned the house from top to bottom. It isn't that the house is grotty - it is not. Those who know me know that I can be a bit of a neat freak. However we have some nice Firemen coming around this afternoon in their fire engine (no this is not a Hen party related afternoon...). The reason is that they will be fitting smoke alarms in Jenny towers. I just don't want them to think that we live in a tip. Gosh, I feel like my Mother now!
After the signing I headed over to some friends' house and chilled out for the evening. It was only walking distance from the Waterstones. It made a change to not have to get the hell out of Dodge right after a signing. I got to finally watch for the first time ever the film 'Predator 2' which is another of those oft talked about films that I seem to have missed until now. It wasn't as good as the first film, but I still enjoyed it. We ended up having quite a fun evening and didn't get to bed until the early hours of the morning.
Sunday allowed a leisurely return trip to Bolton at around lunchtime. I would like to say that I used the afternoon to do something really fun, but instead I cleaned the house from top to bottom. It isn't that the house is grotty - it is not. Those who know me know that I can be a bit of a neat freak. However we have some nice Firemen coming around this afternoon in their fire engine (no this is not a Hen party related afternoon...). The reason is that they will be fitting smoke alarms in Jenny towers. I just don't want them to think that we live in a tip. Gosh, I feel like my Mother now!
Friday, 1 April 2011
The Neverending story
Despite having been old enough to have appreciated it the first time around back in the mid 1980s this film was one that I have never seen. I don't know why exactly I missed this one, because I both saw and loved the film 'Labyrinth' in 1986. Today I redressed the balance and settled down to watch 'The Neverending story' for the first time.
I'm 32 now, and I have to say that I found this film boring, long-winded, and fairly transparent in its plot. It actually left me feeling that I have not been missing anything at all in the last two and a half decades. I've talked with Zoë about this and can only come to the conclusion (because she loved this film) that this effect is a product of the age at which we both first watched it. Maybe if I had watched this aged 5 I would have loved it too? Unless that time machine that Tomorrow's World kept promising turns up I guess I'll never know exactly what my 5 year old incarnation would have made of it. I do know that I loved some pretty dire stuff back then which has failed to rekindle the same excitement and love when rewatched more recently.
It made me wonder what I would actually make of 'Labyrinth' if I were to have come to that film for the first time today? Actually, I can't remember the last time that I watched it - maybe it will have lost a lot of its magic if I ever sit down and watch it again?
I'm 32 now, and I have to say that I found this film boring, long-winded, and fairly transparent in its plot. It actually left me feeling that I have not been missing anything at all in the last two and a half decades. I've talked with Zoë about this and can only come to the conclusion (because she loved this film) that this effect is a product of the age at which we both first watched it. Maybe if I had watched this aged 5 I would have loved it too? Unless that time machine that Tomorrow's World kept promising turns up I guess I'll never know exactly what my 5 year old incarnation would have made of it. I do know that I loved some pretty dire stuff back then which has failed to rekindle the same excitement and love when rewatched more recently.
It made me wonder what I would actually make of 'Labyrinth' if I were to have come to that film for the first time today? Actually, I can't remember the last time that I watched it - maybe it will have lost a lot of its magic if I ever sit down and watch it again?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
