THE

List

Congratulations! Felicitations! Complimenti! You found your way to ‘THE LIST’. Don’t you just love a list? It’s so satisfying to cross off a task when you have completed it. This is a different list. Not the sort you get with a stern lecture about how much time you should devote to reading things you would really rather not. The sort you start to read and then find yourself waking up four hours later thinking “Oh dear, how did that happen?” I doubt you will have seen one like this before. I have organised the list into my own genres They aren’t exactly traditional and I am open to suggestion for others. Might I suggest crossing each book off the list if you read it? You could award a grade, maybe running from A to GRAVE (so bad it needs to be buried) You might want to do this (tick not grade, don’t get ahead of yourself!) when you start a book if you are really trustworthy. Regrettably I am not.

Ms Lea

Purveyor of exceptionally good book lists

THE

List

I promised you ’The list’ and

here it is in all of its glory!

I think of it like a gallery.

I often judge a book by its

cover (at least initially) so its

easier to show them to you

like this.

THE

List

They are arranged rather

unconventionally but I hope

you will catch my drift.

If you would like to suggest a

title for a list please do.

I’d love to hear it and we can

add it to the next edition.

Love (but not in the

conventional sense)

It’s a grave matter

Another World

Trashy-sometimes we

don’t want Tolstoy. (shhh...I don’t ever want Tolstoy)

THE

List

Watery pleasures

Like salted sweet

popcorn-odd but good

And I thought my

family was strange!

School days

Gals with grit

THE

List

Love, but not in the

conventional sense

'Obsessed with sex!' said Jassy, 'there's nobody so

obsessed as you, Linda. Why if I so much as look at a

picture you say I'm a pygmalionist'. In the end we got

far more information out of a book called "Ducks and

Duck Breeding". 'Ducks can only copulate,' said Linda,

after studying this for a while, 'in running water. Good

luck to them'. Oh the tedium of waiting to grow up!

Longing for love, obsessed with weddings and sex,

Linda and her sisters and cousin Fanny are on the look

out for the perfect lover. But finding Mr Right is much harder than any of

the sisters thought. Linda must suffer marriage first to a stuffy Tory MP

and then to a handsome and humorousless communist before finding

real love in war-torn Paris..."The Pursuit of Love" is one of the funniest,

sharpest novels about love and growing up ever written.

Golden Richards is a

normal dad. But with

four wives and twenty

eight children there just

isn't enough of him to

go around.

Unbeknownst to his

wives, Golden has taken

a construction job on a

Nevada brothel. Lying to

cover his tracks, beset

by familial rivalry on

all sides, he seeks relief

in the arms of his boss'

wife. To put it simply,

this is the story of a

polygamist who has an

affair. But there is much

more to it than that.

Generous, wise and

moving "The Lonely Polygamist" is a

bittersweet tale of

family, love and

belonging.

Oskar and Eli. In very

different ways, they were both victims. Which is

why, against the odds, they became friends. And

how they came to depend on one another, for life

itself. Oskar is a 12 year old boy living with his

mother on a dreary housing estate at the city's

edge. He dreams about his absentee father, gets

bullied at school, and wets himself when he's frightened. Eli is the

young girl who moves in next door. She doesn't go to school and never

leaves the flat by day. She is a 200 year old vampire, forever frozen in

childhood, and condemned to live on a diet of fresh blood. John Ajvide

Lindqvist's novel is a unique and brilliant fusion of social novel

and vampire legend, a deeply moving fable

about rejection, friendship and loyalty. The film is beautiful and

achingly sad. Read it then

watch it. You will never look

at a swimming pool in the

same way again!

1891. In a remote and

crumbling New England

mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is

neglected by her guardian uncle and banned

from reading. Left to her own devices she devours

books in secret and talks to herself - and narrates

this, her story - in a unique language of her own

invention. By night, she sleepwalks the corridors

like one of the old house's many ghosts and is

troubled by a recurrent dream in which a

mysterious woman appears to threaten her

younger brother Giles. Sometimes Florence

doesn't sleepwalk at all, but simply pretends to so

she can roam at will and search the house for

clues to her own baffling past.

After the sudden violent death of the children's

first governess, a second teacher, Miss Taylor,

arrives, and immediately strange phenomena

begin to occur. Florence becomes convinced that

the new governess is a vengeful and malevolent

spirit who means to do Giles harm. Against this

powerful supernatural enemy, and without any

adult to whom she can turn for help, Florence

must use all her intelligence and ingenuity to

both protect her little brother and preserve her

private world.

Merricat Blackwood lives on

the family estate with her

sister Constance and her

uncle Julian. Not long ago

there were seven

Blackwoods - until a fatal

dose of arsenic found its way

into the sugar bowl one

terrible night. Acquitted of

the murders, Constance has

returned home, where

Merricat protects her from

the curiosity and hostility of

the villagers. Their days pass

in happy isolation until

cousin Charles appears. Only

Merricat can see the danger,

and she must act swiftly to

keep Constance from his

grasp.

A horrific family tragedy

sets sixteen-year-old

Jacob journeying to a

remote island off the

coast of Wales, where he

discovers the crumbling

ruins of Miss Peregrine's

Home for Peculiar

Children. As Jacob

explores its abandoned

bedrooms and hallways,

it becomes clear that the

children who once lived

here - one of whom was

his own grandfather -

were more than just

peculiar. They may have

been dangerous. They

may have been

quarantined on a

desolate island for good

reason. And somehow -

impossible though it

seems - they may still be

alive.

It’s a grave

matter

ANOTHER WORLD

Deep in the jungles

of eastern Colombia,

Professor Jonas Lear

has finally found

what he's been

searching for - and

wishes to God he

hadn't.

In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-

old girl called Amy is left at the

convent of the Sisters of Mercy and

wonders why her mother has

abandoned her.

In a maximum security jail in

Nevada, a convicted murderer called

Giles Babcock has the same strange

nightmare, over and over again, while

he waits for a lethal injection.

In a remote community in the

Capfornia mountains, a young man

called Peter waits for his beloved

brother to return home - so he can kill

him.

Bound together in ways they cannot

comprehend, for each of them a door

is about to open into a future they

could not have imagined. And a

journey is about to begin. An epic

journey that will take them through a

world transformed by man's darkest

dreams, to the very heart of what it

means to be human.

And beyond.

Far in the future, the World

Controllers have created

the ideal society. Through

clever use of genetic

engineering, brainwashing

and recreational sex and

drugs all its members are

happy consumers. Bernard

Marx seems alone

harbouring an ill-defined

longing to break free. A

visit to one of the few

remaining Savage

Reservations where the old,

imperfect life still

continues, may be the cure

for his distress...

When historian Diana Bishop

opens a bewitched

alchemical manuscript in

Oxford’s Bodleian Library it

represents an unwelcome

intrusion of magic into her

carefully ordinary life.

Though descended from a

long line of witches, she is

determined to remain

untouched by her family’s

legacy. She banishes the

manuscript to the stacks, but

Diana finds it impossible to

hold the world of magic at

bay any longer.

The second in the trilogy is out soon and you

will want to read it. Quick! Catch up!

Trashy

N

Proud

TRASHY

The second in the trilogy is out soon and you

will want to read it. Quick! Catch up!

Trashy

N

Proud

Sookie is a small-time cocktail

waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's

quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out

much - not because she's not pretty - she's

a very cute bubbly blonde - or not

interested in a social life. She really is . . .

but Sookie's got a bit of a disability. She

can read minds. And that doesn't

make her too dateable.

And then along comes Bill: he's tall,

he's dark and he's handsome - and

Sookie can't 'hear' a word he's

thinking. He's exactly the type of guy

she's been waiting all her life for. But

Bill has a disability of his own: he's

fussy about his food, he doesn't like

suntans and he's never around during

the day . . . Yep, Bill's a vampire.

Worse than that, he hangs with a

seriously creepy crowd, with a

reputation for trouble - of the

murderous kind. And then one of Sookie's

colleagues at the bar is killed, and it's

beginning to look like Sookie might be the next victim . . .

“You've reached Fangtasia

where the undead live again

every night," "For bar hours,

press one. To make a party

reservation, press two. To talk to

alive person or a dead vampire,

press three. Or, if you were

intending to leave a humorous

prank message on our

answering machine, know this:

we will find you.”

The message on Fangtasia’s

answerphone.

Living Dead in Dallas

WANTED

Dead

ERIC

NORTHMAN

(Bring to

Ms Lea)

Who would

have guessed

she was a

Sookie

Stackhouse

fan?

Meet Sookie

Stackhouse in the

first True Blood

book. One bite of

these books and you

will be hooked.

You can watch ‘True Blood’. on DVD

You won’t think about Mr Darcy again!

Watery Pleasures

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly

adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of

freaks, grifters, and misfits - the Benzini Brothers Most

Spectacular Show on Earth - a second-rate travelling

circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression,

making one-night stands in town after endless town.

Jacob, a veterinary student who almost earned his

degree, is put in charge of caring for the circus

menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the

beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is

married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal

trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems

untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her. Water

for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time

and place. It tells a story of a love between two people

that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even

love is a luxury that few can afford.

In a dusty post-war summer in

rural Warwickshire, a doctor is

called to a patient at lonely

Hundreds Hall. Home to the

Ayres family for over two

centuries, the Georgian house,

once grand and handsome, is

now in decline, its masonry

crumbling, its gardens choked

with weeds, its owners -

mother, son and daughter -

struggling to keep pace. But

are the Ayreses haunted by

something more sinister than a

dying way of life? Little does

Dr Faraday know how closely,

and how terrifyingly, their

story is about to become

entwined with his.

In her dazzling first book Julie

Orringer dives into the private world

of childhood and immerses us in its

fears and longings: the jealous

friendships and the bitter sibling

battles; the parents that row and the

boys that won't dance with you.

Then, in a voice that is equally

tender and compassionate, she

reminds us of those rare,

exhilarating moments of victory

Watch the DVD after

you’ve read it and see

which you like best

Luke is twenty-five and allergic to the

sun. He is stuck in his bedroom, where

the world comes to him through TV,

the internet and Julie's visits. Julie,

meanwhile, is brilliant, kind and

could be changing the world.

Unfortunately she is too terrified of

aeroplane crashes, road accidents and

potentially life-threatening bacteria to

leave her home town. When someone

contacts Luke and claims that he can

cure him, Luke and Julie have to deal with

their fears and face the world outside. With

four friends, wellies and a homemade space

suit, they set off in a VW Camper van along

Britain's B-roads. It is a journey that might

just change their lives.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her

Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly

opinionated partner; to fellow private-

school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace;

to design mavens, she's a revolutionary

architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a

best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began

when Bee aced her report card and

claimed her promised reward: a family

trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's

intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people

in general--has made her so agoraphobic

that a virtual assistant in India now runs

her most basic errands. A trip to the end

of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email

messages, official documents, secret

correspondence--creating a compulsively

readable and touching novel about

misplaced genius and a mother and

daughter's role in an absurd world

Well now I have the

antidote to your longing.

With devilish plotting and

excellent

characterisation,

bestselling author

Anthony Horowitz delivers

a first-rate Sherlock

Holmes mystery for a modern readership

whilst remaining utterly true to the spirit of

the original Conan Doyle books. Sherlock

Holmes is back with all the nuance, pace and

powers of deduction that make him the

world's greatest and most celebrated

detective. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

Odd But Good

Did you love watching

Sherlock on TV?

Quirky, bizarre, tragic,

fiendishly funny, "The Hotel

New Hampshire" is anything but

a conventional family saga, though a family

saga it certainly is. The Berry family are

different. Love abounds - both healthy and

incestuous. It is the overwhelming desire of

the Berry father to run a hotel, which he

does, with dubious success, in both a former

girls' school in New Hampshire, and in

Vienna. It is the Berry children who grab the

readers' attention, sympathies and love - all

five of them: Frank (the eldest), Franny (the

weirdest), John (the narrator), Lily (the

writer) and Egg (the youngest). When Irving,

or rather John, writes 'Frank's queer,

Franny's weird, Lily's small and Egg is Egg'

the initiated reader can do no other than

shout a deafening 'yes, I know what you

mean!' From there on, the reader is held

spellbound as the family Labrador, Sorrow,

is first stuffed then becomes the cruel victim

of a plane crash; and as John and Franny

realise their incestuous desires. Stunningly

readable, mercilessly involving, "The Hotel

New Hampshire" is peopled with characters -

and bears - that you'll never forget

Meet the Rabbite’s,

they’re ‘grand’ .Be

prepared to laugh

until you hurt but

don’t read on the bus;

I did and people

moved away from me!

This volume brings

together under one

cover, Roddy Doyle's

three acclaimed

novels about the

Rabbite family from

Dublin.

?

Berry Family Motto

“Keep passing the open

windows”

Strange

Families

Lee Fiora is an

intelligent,

observant

fourteen-year-

old when her

father drops

her off in front

of her dorm at

the prestigious

Ault School in Massachusetts.

She leaves her animated,

affectionate family in South

Bend, Indiana, at least in part

because of the boarding

school’s glossy brochure, in

which boys in sweaters chat in

front of old brick buildings,

girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks

on pristinely mown athletic

fields, and everyone sings

hymns in chapel

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences–

complicated relationships with

teachers; intense friendships

with other girls; an all-

consuming preoccupation with

a classmate who is less than a

boyfriend and more than a

crush; conflicts with her

parents, from whom Lee feels

increasingly distant, coalesce

into a singular portrait of the

painful and thrilling

adolescence universal to us all.

Under the influence of their

charismatic classics

professor, a group of clever,

eccentric misfits at an élite

New England college

discover a way of thinking

and living that is a world

away from the humdrum

existence of their

contemporaries. But when

they go beyond the

boundaries of normal

morality their lives are

changed profoundly and for

ever, and they discover how

hard it can be to truly live

and how easy it is to kill …

Passionate,

free-thinking and

unconventional, Miss Brodie

is a teacher who exerts a

powerful influence over her

group of 'special girls' at

Marcia Blaine School. They

are the Brodie set, the

crème de la crème, each

famous for something -

Monica for mathematics,

Eunice for swimming, Rose

for sex - who are initiated

into a world of adult games

and extracurricular

activities they will never

forget. But the price they

pay is their undivided

loyalty . . .

Read this then watch

it on DVD

'Give me a girl at an

impressionable age, and she

is mine for life . . .'

LEE

4

CROSS

4

EVER X

School

Days

’Six inches is perfectly adequate. More is vulgar’ Miss Brodie informs a student on the

correct distance to open a window.

“crème

de la crème…”

'There’s a lot that doesn’t bear thinking about.

Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.’

Narrator Offred is a Handmaid serving the Republic of

Gilead – formerly part of the United States. Her role is

to bear children for her Commander, whose wife is

unable to conceive. If Offred refuses, she will be hanged

or sent to die of radiation sickness in the Colonies. Yet

she can remember a different life, when she had a

home, a husband, and – most agonisingly – her own

child.

The Handmaid’s Tale portrays a chilling dystopia, with its military

hierarchy of Angels, Guardians and Eyes, and its Birthmobiles,

Econowives, Prayvaganzas and Salvagings (executions). Offred makes

frequent references to the world she once knew and the freedom she

took for granted – having her own bank account, wearing her hair

uncovered, even something as simple as using nail varnish.

Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on

charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the

Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up

for his next court date. With two young brothers

depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has

to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in

the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, Ree learns quickly

that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can

be a fatal mistake. But, as an unsettling revelation

lurks, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself

and in a family network that protects its own at

any cost. When Mattie Gokey is given

a bundle of letters to burn

she fully intends to execute

the wishes of the giver,

Grace Brown. When Grace

Brown is found drowned

the next day in Big Moose

Lake, Mattie finds that it is

not as easy to burn those

letters as she had thought.

And, as she reads, a

riveting story emerges - not

only Grace Brown's story

but also Mattie's hopes and

ambitions for the future

and her relationships with

her friends and family.

Ree Dolly is one

kick ass young

woman

Gals with Grit!

What did you

think?

Stinker? Star?

A

What did you award an ‘’A’ and what did you think should be buried? There is no right answer. Reading

should be prescriptive; my list is intended to be a suggestion.

I want to entice you, to make you think ‘I will run to the library and get that book before my best friend even

thinks about it and then I shall read it in front of her knowing I had it first!’

Yes, I really do think you should be that person. I believe that I should encourage you to read and I will use

whatever means necessary. I’ll see you first

(Before your friend. Run, quickly!)

Ms Lea Purveyor of exceptionally

good book lists