@aubrey - good luck finding time! :-) i think i *may* get to do that tomorrow! :-D

@ Dreaming Wife: I didn't find any of them a drag at all. There was supposed to be more than even 4 books but he got the three published and died before he could publish #4. Currently, his longtime gf is having a legal battle with his family over the fourth book.

@greta - oh wow... that sucks... i dont know why - whats going on between them?

@ dreaming wife: well she and Stieg were together for years but never got married and after he passed away she wanted to publish book # 4 because he wanted it published but the family said she had no rights to do so because she wasn't his wife therefore the book belongs to them. They've been fighting it in court.

@greta - thats awful!

Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins

"Jitterbug Perfume is an epic.

That is to say, it begins in the forests of ancient Bohemia and doesn't conclude until nine o'clock tonight (Paris time).

It is a saga as well. A sage must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle.

The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god.

If the liquid in the bottle actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon because it is leaking and there is only a drop or two left."

Best book I've read this year is the 4th book in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Absolutely insane!

I read the entire 780 page book in 2 days.

I don`t think I really read anything.. Apart from Harry Potter 7 & educational books about Psychology and shite.

Laura Spinney - The Quick.

The best book that I read this year was The Help.

I ended up re-reading a lot of my old books on my shelf, since I haven't really had the time to read lately at all either.

I meant to add - I really enjoyed re-reading Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught. I also tried reading The Mists of Avalon, but couldn't get very far into it. It's pretty boring.

@hold the pickles: I really enjoyed Wuthering Heights - it's one of my all time favourites! Cathy and Heathcliff are ten shades of crazy I agree, but I still love it. I will have to read Jane Eyre soon...

Books I've read this year have all been for my literature course which hasn't left much room for recreational reading..

I did enjoy reading 'Evelina' by Frances Burney though and 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe. I'm looking forward to reading Oliver Twist, Frankenstein and The Turn of the Screw in Semester 2 (out of the 20 or so books on the module lists.. grgh).

@Lady Lazarus: Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favourites as well. The fact that the characters are so crazy is the reason why I loved it in the first place!

Colters' Woman ((which is the first of three books)), Clay ((fourth of four books, I'm just now getting to the first one cus I effed up when I bought the book LOL)), & this is the one I'm reading right now Zack((this is the first one of the series with Clay bringing up the end))

I highly recommend The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. They talk about the lives of people in Afghanistan in the past 30 years (during Taliban's ruling and after). You get all the history through the personal lives of the characters rather than just reading historical facts which makes it really interesting. Both books are extremely touching. I cried reading both, specially A Thousand Splendid Suns.

@giggle - i read the kite runner - that was a really good book!

@majd My friend stole my copy of The Kite Runner. I want it back so bad! XD But srsly, both of those books made me bawl they were so good. :)

I'm currently reading Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer. It's not the sort of book I'd ever read, being set in the first half of the 20th century, but my mom loved it and urged me to read it. I'm over halfway through now and it's really intriguing. It's part of a series and the second one isn't published for a few months.

Another book I really enjoyed was Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue (of Room fame). It's not the best written book but it was a very good romp and I certainly didn't see the ending coming! It's about a girl who turns to prostitution in Victorian London and later moves to Wales and becomes a seamstress in an attempt to better herself.

Ooooh and also Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. I think I actually preferred the film but that is because the film follows the book extremely closely. It's only a short read and I was almost in tears at certain points!

I'm with the people who disliked Wuthering Heights. Absolutely nothing happens. This is why I can't get on with most classics, I need at least a bit of action!

I agree with everyone who did not enjoy Wuthering Heights. Not a good read at all.

I also disliked the Steig Larsson Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book. I do not like a lot of description when reading books and I just could not get past it in his writing. I mean, I'm all for description but taking 12 pages to describe a plant to me is overkill. Tell me that the grass is green or whatever but do it in 1/2 a page or less please. I enjoyed the movies though (the original ones in Swedish language with English subtitles) so I'm slightly nervous about the new movie that they're making. I suppose I'll see it though.

Anyway, as far as books I really enjoyed in 2011: Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games was brilliant (again, scared about this movie thing just because I'm sure it won't be what I want it to be) and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Both fabulous reads. :D

The Alchemist- Phenomenal book!

My sister is a LIBRARY NERD not only does she go to various libraries several times a week but is also employed at PHCC! [and yes my niece enjoys these occasions idk about the infant yet lol] Anyway she'll grab certain books that she knows I will like and I really loved... Ann Rule, heart full of lies: http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Full-Lies-Story-Desire/dp/0743202988

@Lady Lazarus:: Jane Eyre has it's own insane characters as well, you might enjoy it.
I liked it because there's humor in their craziness.

I've been studying Literature for 2 years, I'm going on to do my 3rd year this year. I've read a lot of crazy books, Wuthering Heights, The Scarlett Letter, Jane Eyre, Shame, Great Expectations, Great Expectations (No that's, not a typo - there's a Feminist version that has nothing to do with the original) and Authors like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen etc etc. I've gotten use to the books where nothing happens, I've gotten use to the books where too much happens, I've gotten use to books that feel like you're tripping out on some weird drug and I've gotten use to the books that are stock standard beginning-middle-end. My favourites tend to be the ones that end abruptly - that reach a point where you can't wait to see what happens next and then suddenly end - and there's no second book to find out if anything happens after ward.

This year I'm doing something, HOPEFULLY, a little bit more normal. Albeit a nerdy type subject, I'm doing medieval literature - so I get to read Lord of the Rings.