28 Books You Must Read

I was interested to see this booklist from Bookworld - 28 Books You Must Read to Call Yourself Well Read - especially as I have read and generally enjoyed about half of them. The list includes children's books and books for teenagers as well as for adults. There is also a mixture of older titles as well as newer ones plus some non-fiction. Some more books to look out for when I have some spare time.

1. Charlotte's Web by E B White
2. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
3.  The BFG by Roald Dahl
4. Harry Potter by JK Rowling
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
7. Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
10. Cloustreet by Tim Winton
11. Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantell
12. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre
13. Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Garimara Pilkington
14. Neuromancer by William Gibson
15. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
16. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
17. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
18. Persuasion by Jane Austen
19. Animal Farm by George Orwell
20. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
21. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
22. Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared M Diamond
23. A Fortunate Life by A B Facey
24. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
25. Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela
26. The Brian That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
27. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
28. Gallipoli by L A Carlyon

Australia's favourite novelist?

Booktopia Blog recently conducted a survey to decide Australia's favourite novelist - You may or may not agree with their list but it may suggest some additional authors to try.

#11 LibraryThing

An easy way to keep a record of books read and to categorise them. It was pleasing not to have to fill in a form to open another account but just provide a user name and password. I particularly liked the option of being able to select the cover for the book record and not have to use the default (usually American) cover. Being able to choose additional catalogues from which to choose items apart from Amazon and Library of Congress is also useful (though the selection of organisations is limited).

I was unable to locate a recent British publication which I read from our library last month so there is obviously a time delay in books (or just non-American books) appearing.

All in all an easy tool to use. Being able to provide your own summary of the item is useful, though I have not had time to do that yet. The ability to join subject blogs and also to view list of other readers with similar interests could be a good way to discover new titles and authors and, if time permitted, allow for extending interest in, and discussion of, a particular genre or group of books.

Adding the script for placing the search mechanism for the library created to a blog was also not difficult and adds to the usefulness of the tool.

I look forward to adding summaries of books I have enjoyed reading and adding additional titles to the list as time permits.