World Book Day, with sunset

Today is world book day.

I've always read for pleasure. In fact, at my wedding an uncle told me he vividly recalls me aged two sitting on his knee and reading to him (which seems a little unlikely, but so the story goes).

Here is a chronological run-down of my life through the books I've loved, compiled by going to my book room (I hate to say *library*) and picking out the most well thumbed!:

- Peter Pan (JM Barrie)
- A tale of time city (Diana Wynne Jones), The Demon headmaster (Gillian Cross) and novelisations of the TV series Quantum Leap - baby scifi geek phase
- Sweet Valley series (Francine Pascal) and Are you there God? Its me, Margaret (Judy Blume) - vicarious early teenage angst / romance phase
- The Diary of Anne Frank - pacifist phase (ongoing, also influenced by Blackadder goes forth)
- Trainspotting (Irvine Welsh), Circle of Friends (Maeve Binchy) and Adrain Mole: The Wilderness Years (Sue Townsend) - I'm 16 and I think I'm a grown-up phase
- The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), The Queen and I (Sue Townsend) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) - dystopian future / alternative present phase
- Notes from a small island (Bill Bryson) - travel writing phase, for which I have 30+ books on my shelf
- Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) - East Asian fiction phase, for which I have 46 books on my shelf
- Harry Potter series (JK Rowling) and Twilight series (Stephenie Meyer) - regaining my youth phase
- Where did it all go right? and Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now (both Andrew Collins) - somehow my favourite books, autobiographies of an ordinary (well OK he's the Radio Times film editor so not so ordinary) guy's happy childhood and student life which really reflect my own experience.

I own most of the books by these authors, and once I get a theme I go properly down that route for a time.

I have a squillion books and I'll never get rid of them.

You can probably tell a lot about me from that list - but I'll leave that to you!

(Please check out my backblip for yesterday)