The BESH Parlour - good reads and great gin (BYO tasty cakes)

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Am I right Drom? Am I? Am I?

OMG, I've just Googled and discovered that there ended up being 101 Saddle Club books

I was addicted to The Saddle Club books as a teen - dear old Bonnie Bryant must be a machine to have turned out so many, there were 40 or so when I was reading, so goodness only knows how many there are now.

Book 2 made me sob like a baby. Poor Cobalt [sniff]

And the best closing lines, drom!

Oooh, luvvverly books. I Capture the Castle is amaze, and has one of the best opening lines in the history of literature. And I really liked Notes etc etc.

Dot I love that book. I thought about it for a long time after I finished it.

I read Story of My Life by Jay Mcinnery & Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis when I was about 18. I still re read them a lot. other favourites are Tess of the D'ubervilles & Great Expectations. Oh and the entire Mallory Towers series!

I think she wrote it when she was in America during the war, hence the weird sense of intense nostalgia that pervades it.

I read it late (hmm) in life as well, rierie! It made me remember what it was like to read books as a child - that total absorption which I've rarely recaptured as an adult reader.

Uncle Quention was definitely smoking weed in his study. And his bad temper was due to the accompanying paranoia.

I Capture The Castle, Northey!!!!!!!!!!!! I had never read that before last spring when my dear friend Headbanger sent me a copy and now I have read it twice. It makes me feel seventeen and in hopeless love with the boy who was going out with my best friend.

I think my favourite book ever is Notes From an Exhibition by Patrick Gale - fabulous book and one well worthy of a future BESH Book Club choice :)

If anyone can remember where I left my capital letters, please drop me a line. Ta.

Oooo, I find myself in the presence of ESH royalty!

TWW is more expensive as the kindle version than a paperback. How is that possible? (I bought it for the kindle anyway because it is my PRECIOUSSSSSSSSSSS)

I'm enjoying the Caitlin moran book at the mo. Caspar I read the help last month and enjoyed it.

Top 3 books is a tricky one and probably changes from day to day. I loved P&P and The Lovely Bones. A Suitable Boy is pretty amazing too. Love in the time of cholera also good. See, it's tricky. I was a huge Enid Blyton fan back in the day. The main reason I want to conceive is so I can read them to my kids. Judy Blume was awsum when I grew out of Blyton. I think I learned everything i know about sechs from her books.

Northey, you cannot corrupt my childhood reads in that way!

Discussing 1940s gay porn with impressionable young men.

Devouring The Constant Nymph and wiping his eyes on his tweed sleeve.

Making homebrew?

Let's start off our Topp Ackademick Discussion by wondering what Uncle Quentin was really doing in that study. Sleeping or masturbating?

I think, that as I started life as PrincessBoo, that I am in fact ESH royalty.

Enid Blyton is my literary heroine. I think I read everything she had ever written by the time I was 10. I then reread the lot multiple times. I so wanted to go to boarding school!

Ha ha, northey! I forgot about Aunt Fanny in the Five books. But I'm just the wifey. I'll have to consult with Uncle Quentin. (Only that will have to wait as he is shut in his study doing top secret important work.)

I am quite happy to have parallel discussions of a number of books going on at any time. Would be have to set a date to have a discussion of any particular book?

I totally think we should discuss Five Go To Kirrin Island. As well as The tiger's Wife. In fact, we could discuss it while we are waiting to buy and read TTW. What did you think of it, auntfanny?

I adore the idea of a thread for chatting about books generally, perhaps with a book for joint reading ticking along in the background for those who want to join in for any one title.

I am another Enid Blyton/Elinor Brent-Dyer whore, aries. And a pony book lover too, drom and fanny. Was going to say pony whore, but that would have been a whole world of wrong.

Favourite book is too hard to say. Frost In May, I Capture The Castle, King of a Rainy Country and Saplings are currently up there. But different things speak to me at different times

Persevere, moley? Surely that should never be a necessary word in BESH book club. I can't stand 'worthy' books that I feel I am supposed to read, and have to force myself to keep going because it's oh so important that I read this amazing, award-winning book.

And I have to admit the reason I have not yet bought TTW is that I am afeared it will feel a bit like that. Please smack me over the head and say it's a gripping read and I won't be able to put it down.

Am I wrong to suggest that BESH book club should include in-depth analysis of books like 'Five go to Kirrin Island'? We could have a lot of fun with that!

Please to join too. I don't have TTW yet, or the technological means of aquiring it, but I shall have a look up the Amazon. I have started New Year with the intention of reading Dickens, after realising I had only ever read Oliver Twist in the long (without any of the words missed out) version, but I can postpone it.

I do like a book, but got quite put off after a degree in the stuff at the sort of University (not a bridge one) where lots of shouty boys had been to Eton and had worries about the emasculation of sitting around discussing books, and so shouted Ver Loudly about how clever they were and I never got a word in edgeways. I did my dissertation on Anne of Green Gables in protest.

Also can't choose favourites- I know when I finally get round to reading the fire and ice ones they will be probably be flavour of the month. I'm still not over my adolescent love affair with all things magically real- Eva Luna, 1000 years of Solitude, etc. And I loved The Gargoyle recently. I am struggling with The Book Thief, shall I persevere?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy! How's tricks? I haz a new job starting next week so may never meet you at RNA highjinks.

I am currently reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Difference (amaze, btw); and What Katy Did Next.

Figgy!!!!! Arf at Fanny being MN royalty. No ESH is MN Royalty. I spit on MN royalty. Oh wait, sorry - it doesn't exist.

Anyway, is this turning into a "Books I have read in my life" list? I'll start:

The Enchanted Wood (and two sequels)
First Form at Malory Towers (and five sequels)
Five Have a Mystery to Solve (and twenty sequels)
The Adventurous Four (and sequel)
The School at the Chalet (and two hundred sequels)....................................