Favorite books

Since I was a child I love to read. My mother told me that I was born with a book in my hands and with a headset on my ears, as I also love to listen to music. When I was young I read all the books about the Famous Five by Enid Blyton. Later on my intrest was elsewhere. the last few years I read a lot of books in English, also because I like a lot of English/American writers, and I think the best way to read a book is in the original language. I always feel that the soul steps out of the book when it is translated in other languages. The little jokes in the book don't work really good if they are translated. I read a lot of books both in English and Dutch as I want to see how the translater did the work. They did a great job when it comes to the Harry Potter books. They were translated good. I started to read these when I saw everybody around me reading them. There must have been something special about them. If I am not sure to buy a book or not, I always go to the bookstore and open the book somewhere halfway and start reading a page or two. If I like the styl I buy it and if I don't I put it back. I did like the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings books, so they are in my possession, in both English and Dutch.

There is one favorite that I can read over and over again. Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful book for me and when I finished it for the first time, I started again. It is very well written and it is just a wonderful book. I tried to read more Jane Austen books, but they were not my kind of thing. Two writers I really admire are Charles Dickens and Neil Gaiman. When I was young I saw Oliver Twist on TV and I was very impressed. Some years later I bought the book and since then I try to buy a Charles Dickens book every time I visit London. Bleak House is one of my favorites. The BBC made a series of it with Nathaniel Parker, Charles Dance (who was a very scary Mr Tulkinghorn) and other great actors. At the moment I am reading Little Dorrit, and it is wonderful. I visited the Charles Dickens house in London once and it was fantastic to walk around there.Neil Gaiman I got to know through the film Stardust. After seeing the film I read the book and got curious about other books he wrote. My favorite so far are Anansi Boys and Neverwhere. I love the sence of humour Neil has and the sort of macabre atmosphere in the books.

Other authors I like are Elizabeth George, JK Rowling, Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Elizabeth George is the author of the Inspector Lynley books. Ofcourse everybody knows JK Rowling for her Harry Potter books. I am curious what the future will bring now these series has come to an ending. Shakespeare is a bit hard to read, but if I take my time I get there. Oscar Wilde is someone I discovered just lately. As I mentioned in another blog, I was always fascinated by the story about Dorian Gray and now I have the Dutch Version.

I also like to read biographies and the one from Jay Leno, which I bought in Nashville a few years back is the best one. I tried to read it on a flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam but I had to stop. It was so funny that I had to laugh, while everybody around me was sleeping. I didn't want to wake them up so I put the book aside. I read it from time to time and I still have to laugh if I read "Leading with my chin". Jay has a very nice style of writing and some pictures are funny too. I like Jay as talkshow host, and this book showed me that he was funny when he was young.

Many books I read lately I discovered with many thanks to films or TV series with my favorite actor Nathaniel Parker. He played in some TV drama's as Vanity Fair and Far From The Madding Crowd. They showed me what a wonderful actor he is, but I also got very curious about the books, so I bought them aswell.

As for audiobooks, I was never interested in them, untill I got to know that Nathaniel Parker read a lot of them. I collect his audiobooks now and it is a pleasure to listen to them. My favorite is The Water Horse. It is a children's book, but so well read. I hear the fun in his voice. It always makes me smile to listen to that audiobook. I have a lot of Nathaniel's audiobooks on 2 MP3 players and when I have a long travel by train they are a treat for the ear. When I ride my bike I can't listen to them as the cars and other trafic makes so much noise that I can't hear Nathaniel speak, so I save the audiobooks for long travels. And with many thanks to some friends I keep on discovering new authors and books. And I am more than happy with that.