A Little Book Q and A.

I've just seen an article from Shelterbox Book Club, an interview with the author, actor, director and all round favourite person of mine, Stephen Fry, who i seem to think I've mentioned somewhere before in this little blog of mine. Anyway, it was called confessions of a book traveller, and it was one of these we send you a form to fill in things, but it made me think. I love to read, though these days I'm miles behind with books, and seem to read most the comfortable old books I love, because they're what I like most to escape into. Nevertheless, I wondered, if I was a celeb and had been asked these questions, how would I have answered. Then I thought, well, I have a little blog, my personal air space, no harm in me trying to answer them right here. And let me tell you, they're not as easy as they look. So here, ladles and jelly spoons, brought to you at henormous hexpense, for your delectation and delight, are my Confessions of a book traveller.

1. What book character would you most like to live with?

That's really hard. I can think of any number I'd like to meet, have as friends, but live with? I think it would have to be Lord Peter Wimsey. Do you know, that man is so real to me, I've come as close, at various times in my up and down life, to loving him as one can to a book character. But because I know so much about how he thinks, I know he'd never ever want to live with me. I'd be absolutely the wrong person for him.

2. Which book setting would you most like to travel to, real or fictional?

I'd like to travel to Shrewsbury abbey in Brother Cadfael's time, in the year of 1140 or so, get to meet him, sit and drink wine with him and Hugh Berringar in the herbarium, maybe have a meal with dear Abbot Radulphus, hear Vespers in the church. It would be wonderful. I also think it wouldn't be anywhere near as idealized as Ellis Peters makes it. I think a lot got glossed over in those books.

3. Which book ending do you wish you could change and how?

That is a really hard one again. I have one real pet peeve, I hate it when I've read a book, got to know a character, and then, right at the very end, he or she dies. I recently gave up reading Dune by James Herbert because I could see the main character was going to die and I just couldn't bear it. I went through the whole three Divergent books, and after all that girl had put me through, and I wasn't all that keen on her in the first place, she died! It drives me scatty! Two things I'd really like to change at the ends of books are coming to mind, though I don't suppose you can call them real endings, I hope this will do. In Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins, the third of the Hunger Games trilogy, I do wish they hadn't killed Prim. I get that it helped Catness finally make up her lentil sized mind, but it really wasn't ok to me to kill off by far the best of those two girls. If they had to kill someone out of Catness's family, there was someone else they could have taken. Next up, in Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows, i wish JK hadn't killed Fred Weasley. There were always going to be deaths, and thank goodness Lupin and Tonks went together, my heart broke for poor lupin all through that book, but I really wish she'd let the Weasleys alone. It hurts my heart every time I think of poor George without that other part of himself.

4. What's your favourite book by a non western author?

It's Fire Road: The Napalm Girl's Journey Through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace, by Kim Phuc Phan Thi. This is a million miles away from my usual kind of reading, but I was listening to the earphone awards, or whatever they're called, the awards given each year to the best audiobooks, narators etc. This book just kept winning and winning and I thought, well, if it's that good I'll read it and see if I like it, I've got oodles of credits. Well, I happened to be having a bad time with the bones, so I got it, and honestly, I was blown away. Talk about inspirational.

5. Where is your reading spot?

I have two actually. One is right here where I am writing this. It is on my sofa, in the left hand corner seat. I either use my PC with my headphones on to access books, or my beautiful new Echoes if I want to read in the day. The other is my bed, I can't go to sleep in the quiet, so I snuggle between my pink satin sheets and put on a book, it has to be something i know practically every word of, with a narator whose voice won't jar and wake me up. Then he or she quietly reads and I close my eyes and drift into dreamland.

6. What is your all time favourite book?
I wonder how many of you will guess the answer before I tell you? I don't even have to think about this one. It is Watership Down by Richard Adams. It's a book I've known and loved since I was ten years old, and as I've matured, it's only gotten better. It gives me a place where I can shut the door of the real world behind me and go, as a song I know says, somewhere that's green. I think life would be a bleak place if we didn't have books that could give us that magic door to open into a different world, or a hundred different worlds. When we have a book, there is no such thing as lockdown. We can go anywhere we want.