The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis

Definitely my least favourite of the 7 books, and I read them (every time) in publication order rather than in Narnian chronological order (and I don't care what CS Lewis himself said, I think they are much better that way).

This one hands us Narnia's very own creation myth, the beginning of that world, the introduction to it of evil and - well not much else apart from the moment at the end when Digory makes a wardrobe...

As I have one more book in the series to go, I thought I'd make one monster review when I've finished that one. Watch this space!

The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis

I really don't know if there is anything else to say about this book that hasn't been said elsewhere and better.

It's the only of the Narnia books which is set wholly in Narnia and has nearly no involvement of any of the children from our world (and then, only late on, briefly, as grown-ups).

Welcome to my new blog!

I love reading. I read. A lot. At work I'm famous for it, everyone knows that when I go for lunch, more likely than not I'm heading to McDonalds (the nearest place) for coffee with my book. Anyone is welcome to join me but there are rules.

Rule 1: you are not allowed to talk to me when I'm reading.
Rule 2: refer to Rule 1.

Simples.

Up to now I've kept a sort of online diary over at my h2g2 page. But I want to open my reading diary to... well, to whom? To the world, a it happens, and since the relative success of my public transport blog I thought I'd give it a go.

The concept is simple (it has to be since apart from being famous for reading I'm also famous for having a brain the size of a pea). I will make a post whenever I start a new book and then if anyone wants to talk about it they can leave a comment.

But what do I read? Well, everything. Currently I'm working my way through a few series:

• the Percy Jackson series (waiting for the 5th and final book to be delivered)
• the Chronicles of Narnia (in publication order - oh look, I'm waiting for the 5th to arrive)
• the Discworld novels (also in publication order, I'm up to Reaper Man)
• the Swallows & Amazons series (there will shortly appear a post about Winter Holiday)
• the Chronicles of Prydian (I've read two, I think there are four but I seem to have lost momentum)

In addition I've recently discovered a liking for reading about science (physics in particular) and science history. I love biographies and autobiographies (official and unofficial). Fantasy features large, as does historical fiction (and romantic historical fiction on occasion). Travel writing is another thing I'm becoming addicted to and am always on the look out for new (to me) writers. Classic and modern, fiction and non-fiction. I particularly also like classic Russian literature but never seem to have the bottle to read it.

For such a voracious reader I'm sorry to say that I don't use the library as much as I should because I love to own the books I'm reading. We are members of our local library, but since the Gruesome Twosome also like to own books (and since I'm such a pushover to "muuummmm I don't have anything to read, can you buy me a book?") we don't use it much. Perhaps we should make that a resolution this year. Use the library.

There is another reason for not using the library as much as we should is that I am very lazy about reading books in German. I hardly ever do and am hoping to rectify that this year. For Christmas I was given a set of 15 Classic German Books and I'm looking forward to making a start on those.

I'm also very happy to receive recommendations and, indeed, I'm hoping to get some...

That's enough waffle. Feel free to comment, make recommendations or generally shoot the breeze.