WORLD BOOK NIGHT 2013.

A happy thanksgiving to all our friends across the pond.

Well, that's me signed up as a potential giver for next years WORLD BOOK NIGHT - now I just have to wait until February to know if I've been successful.

The UK choices for the event are:-

My choices .....

Imagine you're the only boy in a town of men. And you can hear everything they think. And they can hear everything you think. Imagine you don't fit in with their plans... Todd Hewitt is just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man. But his town has been keeping secrets from him. Secrets that are going to force him to run...

- Amazon book description.

She's only been gone two hours.

Her husband David was meant to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt walks into the nursery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen before.

With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?

- Amazon book description.

An all-time-classic in a small paperback format. Judge Dredd's ultimate nemesis has arrived. His name is Judge Death, and in his eyes, all life is a crime! the super-fiend from Deadworld proves to be an implacable enemy, and Judge Dredd must work with Psi Judge anderson to save Mega-City one from a city-wide death penalty. Fearsome characters that have mainatained their popularity throughout the years thanks to the fantastic designs of Brian Bolland, the Dark Judges are determined to end all life in Mega-City one once and for all!

- Amazon book description.

The other books .....

• THE SECRET SCRIPTURE - Sebastian Barry (Faber)*
• NOUGHTS AND CROSSES - Malorie Blackman (RHCB)
•  GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING - Tracy Chevalier (HarperCollins)
• THE EYRE AFFAIR - Jasper Fforde (Hodder)
• CASINO ROYALE - Ian Flming (Vintage)
• A LITTLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD - EH Gombrich (Yale)
• THE WHITE QUEEN - Philippa Gregory (Simon & Schuster) *
• DAMAGE - Josephine Hart ( Virago)
• THE ISLAND - Victoria Hislop **
• RED DUST ROAD - Jackie Kay (Picador)*
• LAST NIGHT ANOTHER SOLDIER - Andy McNab (Transworld)
• ME BEFORE YOU - JoJo Moyes (Penguin)
• THE READER - Bernherd Schlink (Orion)*
• No 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY - Alexander McCall Smith (Little Brown)**
• TREASURE ISLAND - Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin)**
• THE ROAD HOME - Rose Tremain (Vintage)
• WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU COULD BE NORMAL? - Jeanette Winterson (Vintage)

* Read and reviewed on Pen and Paper, unlike the rest of the books which I've linked to Amazon, I've linked these to my posts.

** Read before I started blogging. Whilst I loved the Island by Victoria Hislop, I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. As for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, a favourite since my childhood, I've read it countless number of times.

So, any of these books appeal to you, have you read any of them? If you could give away one book to everyone you knew, what book would it be and why?

I think for me it would have to be .....

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is a wonderfully moving fable that addresses the meaning of life, and life after death. The novel's protagonist is an elderly amusement park maintenance worker named Eddie who, while operating a ride called the 'Free Fall', dies while trying to save a young girl who gets in the way of a falling cart that hurtles to earth. Eddie goes to heaven, where he meets five people who were unexpectedly instrumental in some way in his life. While each guide takes him through heaven, Eddie learns a little bit more about what his time on earth meant, what he was supposed to have learned, and what his true purpose on earth was. Throughout there are dramatic flashbacks where we see scenes from his troubled childhood, his years in the army in the Philippines jungle, and with his first and only love, his wife Marguerite. 

- Amazon book description.

A fairly short read so those not accustomed to reading/too busy too read wouldn't be put off by the length. Though I can't claim this book exactly changed my life, I did find it a beautiful and thought provoking read that had a profound effect on me.