...The Last Book You Read.

The title is pretty self explanatory on this one, I want to know what the last book you read was and what it was like. As most of you know I am an avid reader and if the book is engaging I can finish it within a few days; I prefer to read then to watch tv (sounds like a bloody online dating blurb right? Sickening...).

I always like people to recommend a good book so this is where you guys come in, let me know what the last book you read was and give it a rating. Don't be scared (said in an American accent, preferably a rapper's accent...), you can post under this blog, on facebook or if your massively ashamed of what you've been reading then you can drop me a private message.

Now the last thing I read was Terry Pratchett's "Men at Arms" and before that it was David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas". I wanted to read the book before I saw the film and I'm glad I did. Bits of his book were (I'm not gonna lie) a struggle, I just didn't give a shit about the character and found my mind drifting off to another dimension. I did however LOVE the middle section, I thought it was well written and engaging (cor it seems like it's a Sunday of big words!) and just for that I would recommend it.

I adore anything Terry Pratchett writes, in my eyes he can do no wrong, he is a bloody genius. I am steadily making my way through his Discworld novels and if it was up to me I would have finished all the books by now but my brain can't handle that much awesomeness in one go. So I have to read in bursts of 2 or 3 otherwise my dreams become infected with Discworld characters and it's quite hard to get much sleep (I don't sleep much anyway so any intrusion on said sleep is NOT WELCOME). I have to read them in the order they were written (I don't know why, just put it down to one of those "eccentricities"). I finished "Men at Arms" in 3 days and I loved it, I really enjoy the Watch characters and anything with them, Death, the Witches or Rincewind in are amongst my favourite stories. If you haven't read any Pratchett then I highly recommend you do it, now, right now, I'm being totally serious.

Some people not familiar with the brilliance of Discworld may call this an obsession (Natalie this is directed at YOU...) and maybe it is but I really don't care, I am obsessed. The books even have their own shelf in my room...see...

a step too far?



 Please don't judge me, I've already judged myself.

Right anyway, I like to keep a stack of "books that must be read" in my room and it looks like this:

I've obviously read "Cloud Atlas" but all the bookshelves are full and it has no home. Next up is another Pratchett and then I want to finish Bram Stocker's Dracula. I'm trying to munch my way through a few of the classics that I neglected to read in Secondary School, primarily because they were "suggested reads" and back then anything that was "suggested" meant it was clearly not worth reading/doing/listening to...etc.

So if you've managed to stumble through this post and want to add books to my pile of "books that must be read" then please do! Don't be afraid! Embrace this! Embrace this right now! Look at all the exclamation marks! Clearly this is something worth doing!

I'll leave you to muse over this, as for me I'm going down to Sainsburys to buy me some ingredients to cook up a Mother's Day storm. I'm going to attempt to cook my mum her favourite food, I'm not going to say what it will be just in case she reads this, I like to cover my bases. I'd be an excellent spy. Fact.

Happy Mother's day everyone and remember a Mother is for life, not just for a day.