Life Changing and Regret Reading

THEME: Book that changed my life/perspective
Sally Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Elizabeth Gilbert)
AND 100 Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Cath: Wonderful: The Justice Game (Geoff Robertson - famous Aussie QC.)
Gemma: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Milan Kundera)
Leona: Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (Jeffery Archer)
Linda: The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
Nicole: Life of Pi (Yann Martel)


EMOTION: Book I wish I'd never read
Cath: How to be Good (Nick Hornby)
Gemma: The Sea ( John Banville)
Jenni: Catch 22
Karen: Prince of Tides
Leona: 31 Songs (Nick Hornby)
Linda: The story of my experiments with truth (M. K. Gandhi)
Nicole: How to be good (Nick Hornby)
Alison: Deception Point (Dan Brown)

Biography and Love

THEME: Biography
Gemma: Titanic Express (Richard Wilson)
Karen: A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
Leona: Long walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela)'
Linda: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Jung Chang)
Lisa: Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt) This made me laugh and made me cry. I was really moved.
Monica: Losing My Virginity (Richard Branson) AND Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S Thompson)
Alice: Empress Orchard (Anchee Min)
Nicole: Cosa Nostra (John Dickie)
Alison: Mayada, Daughter of Iraq (Jean Sasson)


EMOTION: Love
Gemma: The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
Leona: Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
Linda: Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
Lisa: Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
Monica: The Zahir, (Paulo Coelho)
Nicole: The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
Alice: Romeo & Juliet (William Shakespeare
Alison: A Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth)

Historical and Enlightenment

THEME: Historical
Karen: All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
Leona: Sunne In Splendour (Sharon Penman)
Linda: Sunne in Splendour (Sharon Penman)
Monica: Mary Queen of Scots (Margaret George)
Nicole: The Odyssey (Homer)
Alice: The Count of Monte Christo (Alexandre Dumas)
Alison: Sunne In Splendour (Sharon Penman)
Gemma: Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T.E. Lawrence)

EMOTION: Enlightened
Karen: The Art of Happiness (His Holiness The Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler, M.D.)
Leona: Questions of Life (Nicky Gumbel)
Linda:The Master & Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
Monica: The Tao of Pooh (Benjamin Hoff)
Nicole: The Motorcycle Diaries (Che Guevara)
Alice: Many Lives, Many Masters (Dr Brian Weiss)
Alison: The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
Gemma: The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Milan Kundera)

Crime and Nostalgia

THEME: Crime
Annie: From Hell (Alan Moore)
Avril: Gangs (Tony Thompson)
Ella Anything by Agatha Christie
Gemma: In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
Karen: Body Double (Tess Gerritsen)
Leona: Killing Pablo (Mark Bowden)
Linda: Red Dragon (Thomas Harris)
Nicole: Killing Pablo (Mark Bowden)
Alice: Deception Point (Dan Brown)
Alison: Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Secret Seven, Famous Five! (Read when a child)


EMOTION: Nostalgic
Annie: The Little Prince (Antoine De Saint-Exupery)
Avril: Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
Ella Empire of the Sun (J.G. Ballard)
Gemma: I'm Not Scared (Niccolo Ammaniti, Translated by Jonathan Hunt) AND The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood (Elspeth Huxley)
Karen: The Rainbow Serpent
Leona: Pig City -- from the Saints to Savage Garden (Andrew Stafford)
Linda: Seashores & Shadows (Colin Thiele)
Nicole: Hating Alison Ashley
Alice: Alice in Wonderland or The Faraway Tree
Alison: Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Secret Seven, Famous Five!

Travel and Humour

THEME: Travel
Alison: Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure (Sarah MacDonald)
Annie: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Avril: The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
Catherine A Single Tear (Ningkun Wu & Yikai Li)
Gemma: The City of Djinns (William Dalrymple)
Karen: Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure (Sarah McDonald)
Leona: Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
Linda: A Year In Provence (Peter Mayle) AND Almost French: A New Life In Paris (Sarah Turnbull)
Lisa: OK, I don't actually have a favourite travel book. Only one I can think of is perhaps 'The Power of One'.
Monica: Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes)
Nicole: Marching Powder (Rusty Young)
Alice: Anything by Bill Bryson AND disappointed by Lonely Planet's Book Short Stories


EMOTION: Laughter
Alison: He Died with a Felafel in his Hand (John Birmingham)
Annie: Confessions of a Crap Artist (Phillip K. Dick)
Avril: Down Under (Bill Bryson)
Catherine: Billy (Pamela Stevenson)
Gemma: Are you Experienced? (William Sutcliffe)
Karen: Skinny Dip
Leona: Hungry Years (William Leith)
Linda: Running A Hotel On The Roof Of The World: Five Years In Tibet (Alec Le Sueur)
Lisa: The Other Side of The Story' (Marian Keys)
Monica: Vesuvius Club (Mark Gatiss)
Nicole: Elegance (Kathleen Tessaro)
Alice: Hollywood Divorces (Jackie Collins)

Top 5 Reads

ALICE
1. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
2. An Equal Music (Vikram Seth)
3. La Prisonierre (Malika Oufkir)
4. Salem Falls (Jodi Picoult)
5. The Reader (Bernard Schlink)

ALISON
1. Life Of Pi (Yann Martel)
2. The Alchemist (Paulo Coehlo)
3. Memoirs Of A Geisha (Arthur Golden)
4. The Zaphir (Paulo Coehlo)
5. Forbidden Love (Norma Khouri)

ANNABELLE
1. Sleeping In Flame (Jonathan Carroll)
2. The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen)
3. In Cold Blood (Truman Capote)
4. A Fortunate Life (A.B. Facey)
5. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)

AVRIL
1. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
2. April Fools Day (Bryce Courtenay)
3. The Samurai's Garden (Gail Tsukiyama)
4. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
5. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)

CATHERINE
1. Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)
2. J Edgar Hoover Biography
3. Harry Potter (JK Rowling
4. Robert Ludlem: All of his stuff - trashy boy-type thrillers.
5. Kim Beazley Biography

GEMMA
1. Don't Let's Not Go To The Dogs Tonight (Alexandra Fuller)
2. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Milan Kundera)
3. From the Holy Mountain (William Dalrymple)
4. The Riders (Tim Winton)
5. The Shark Net (Robert Drewe)

KAREN
1. My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
2. The Art of Happiness (His Holiness the Dhali Lama)
3. A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar)
4. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
5. Speeches That Shaped The Modern World (Alan J Whiticker)

LEONA
1. Long walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela)
2. Trinity (Leon Urus)
3. About A Boy (Nick Hornsby)
4. Chronicles (Bob Dylan)
5. One Child (Tory Hayden)

LINDA
1. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
2. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
3. The Agony & The Ecstacy (Irving Stone)
4. Sunne in Splendour (Sharon Penman)
5. Red Dragon (Thomas Harris)

LISA
1. The Poet (Michael Connelly)
2. Mystic River (Dennis Lehane)
3. He Died With a Felafel In His Hand (John Birmingham)
4. Crime Fiction (Partrica Cornwell)
5. IT (Stephen King)

MONICA
1. My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
2. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegge)
3. Harry Potter (JK Rowling)
4. Fourth Estate (Jeffrey Archer)
5. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell):

NICOLE
1. Trinity (Leon Urus)
2. White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
3. Life Of Pi (Yann Martel)
4. The Exodus (Leon Uris)
5. Memoirs Of A Geisha (Arthur Golden)