What is your very, very favourite book ?

[Happymouse]

My favourite gardening book is "Basic Gardening Illustrated" It's a very good old 1963 book. My favourite non-gardening book has to be "Polyanna" The film with Hayley Mills is my favourite film too.

[Chantal]

Just about any Agatha Christie with either Miss Marple or Poirot. I've read them so many times I can quote from some of them, but I still read them again and again; always a good fall back. They may be full of murder but you don't get the details that seem to be so necessary now. After reading something by a modern author it's so nice to go back to a different age when good manners were so important.

Gardening, I suppose it has to be "Liquid Gold" which may not be gardening as such but was so fascinating I read it from cover to cover without putting it down.

[vicki]

My all time feel-good fave going back years is Anne of Green Gables- sad but true! read it back in my early teens and it still comes out now and again!

[peter]

Garden Design by Kenneth Midgley, a Penguin Handbook.

Fiction, what has stayed with me for many years from childhood, probably "Brendon Chase" by BB. Was adapted for ITV some time ago I think. 1920's Village Doctors three sons left in the care on an ancient and disliked great aunt abscond with the gardeners .22 rifle and live in a local forest until father returns at Christmas. Wonderful boys adventure.

Desert Island luxury, the complete works of Terry Pratchett. Well thumbed and yet I still find new ironies, wordplays, parodies of our world and damm good jokes at each reread.

[sprout]

What a great question!
Gardening: The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward C Smith. A no-digger's manual, written by someone who has grown veg all his life and just sharing his experience and love of growing.
Non-gardening: I'll go with Chantal, I love Ms Christie to bits. We have all the talking books, so I can do handwork and listen in the winter

[Carole B.]

I think it has to be 'My family and other Animals' by Gerry Durrell,just so observant and funny,although I'm with Peter on the desert island choice.
For non-fiction it has to be any cookbook by Jane Grigson...who needs pictures when you can describe recipes like that? I take them to bed for a night time read!It's like having a chat with a best mate in the kitchen.

[jopsy]

I am struggling to come up with a favourite as there are lots I liked at different ages.
As a small child I loved the Mog books, a bit later I loved Stig of the dump-I always wanted to meet him! then I got into Sherlock Holmes, now I like a mix of far flung places books (inc will randall) and a nice murder!
I usually have my head buried in the latest chidrens book for school too!

DH isnt an avid reader but collects Dandy and Beanos from yonks ago, he also has all the dean koontz and most of the stephen kings

[lizzie]

Non fiction would have to be Bono on Bono by Mishka something (can't spell his surname) A facsinating insight into an extremely intelligent, complex, creative man.

Fiction is anything by Lindsey Davis, the Marcus Didius Falco murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome. Or Jamica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, anything by Charles Dickens, Mill on the Floss, Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley and The Chronicals of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson.

These are just off the top of my head, there are loads more

[Lyn]

Hi-
Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice", Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" and - the very favourite of all time - Kenneth Graham's "The Wind in the Willows".
Best, Lyn

[Wellie]

When I first bought it, I fell in love with it.
Every time I open it, I fall in love with it again.

And every vegetable grower that's as passionate about cooking as growing should own it.

PARADISO SEASONS, by the VERY brilliant Irish Chef, Denis Cotter.

He preludes every recipe with a story as to why or how the recipe came about or exists in his restaurant kitchen, and the WIT is just extraordinary. No disrespect to Trousers whatsoever, but if Denis was NOT happily married to his wife, I'd marry him tomorrow, as Lizzie would Bono, eh girlie?!
Wellie

[lizzie]

How right you are Wellie!!!

Shame Bono met his wife when she was 12 and he 13. Started going out togeth at the ages of 15 and 16. Have been together ever since, marrie for 24 years and have 4 beautiful children. AND, she's a nice person. Bitch

She is lovely. On her passport where it says occupation, Ali's says mother.

As for the B man, thud.

Pick me up someone please. Oh sod, i'll stay where i am and dream

[Piglet]

Some of you wont believe this but for me its The Bible, for eassier reading one that sticks in my mind is David Nivens "The Moons A Balloon", very wity and very interesting.

[Wellie]

You won't believe this Piglet, but my Dad simply LOVED David Niven, and HIS very fave was: The Moon's a Balloon. Sadly, his limited, but interesting library never came close enough for me to read....
Lend it to me some time?
Wellie
X

[Zena]

Can I cheat and have a "complete works of...."?
Either the Duncton series by William Horwood...a cross between Lord of the Rings and Watership Down but about moles. It made me laugh, it made me cry- fantastic.
or, the Morlands dynasty series by Cynthia Harrod Eagles. A family saga starting during the Wars of the Roses and going up to the 20th Century. The historical detail is amazing....

[Chantal]

I'd forgotten all about David Niven's books, I love "The Moon's a Balloon" too, also the second book "Bring on the Empty Horses", I'v read both of them a dozen times. And guess what Wellie, they were my dad's favourite books too.

Just curious Piglet, but have you read his novel "Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly"?