I’m a bit bored now, so I thought I should talk a little about my favourite books here, or reading in general. Since I was a young, little girl my favourite hobby was reading books. I started as soon as I learnt to read actually, and of course, the first book was Brother Grimm’s fairy tales. I LOVED the stories about princesses and castles, and the happy endings too. As I grew older I started reading more Fantasy books, but also “girlie” books (about the first love etc). I got my first “Horror” book when I was about 12 and it was Stephen King’s “It”. I loved it and it didn’t really scare me, but after watching the film (at the same age secretly with my cousin when the parents were out for a night) I started hating clowns. Nonetheless I became a massive Stephen King fan and got my parents to buy me lots of his books (including “Misery”, “Shining”, “The Dark Tower”, “Needful things”, “Cujo”, “The Green Mile” and many others). The other favourite Horror book author I discovered was Dean Koontz and I probably read his book “Intensity” more than 20 times by now.
By the age of 13-14 I also started reading biographies, the first was one of Jim Morrison’s biographies (forgot the name, sorry) and the second one “Queen – as it began”. I remember when we had to bring a book to school and introduce it. I brought the Queen bio along (and got an “A” for it, hah). I have no idea where it ended up (probably in my parents attic – I never ever would throw a book away) but I will never forget the sentence on the first page where it said “And so sad it ends as it began”. I was a massive Queen Fan and of course absolutely devasted by the death of Freddie Mercury.
Anyway, back to books, shall we?! The next genre I discovered (at the age of 15 – ish) were books about the 2nd world war. I was interested in that subject quite early. My grandad had to fight in Stalingrad, was shot in the head, survived and was flown out just before the Russians closed the city. He hardly spoke about it but when he did I could hardly imagine what a nightmare it must have been. I was very close to him, but he died when I was only 7 years old. I wish he could have stayed longer with me, I would have liked to ask him so many questions about his experience there. Anyway, my dad had a book on his shelve about soldiers who were fighting in Stalingrad and it really impressed and scared me at the same time. Few years later I bought the biography about Hitler by Joachim Fest, because I wanted to have a “closer” look at this man (or rather monster), followed by other books about him and the 3rd Reich.
Few years later I was reading quite a lot about Austalia in the 19th Century, no idea why but they were quite interesting too, most of them fiction though.
But my all time favourite books came to me MUCH later. Yes, I know, I put my head down in shame, but I read “The Lord of The Rings” when I was already 22 – ish. I have to admit, the first book, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, was a bit boring, because Tolkien was describing every single grass blade. At least that was my feeling. “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” were MUCH better though and since that time I was reading the books actually at least once a year. Right after “Lord of the Rings” I read “The little Hobbit” and was very disappointed. I still don’t like it but there isn’t really a special reason why, I just don’t like it. Usually, when you love a book and someone makes a film about it, you end up being disappointed, but when Peter Jackson’s films came out I loved them straight away. The characters were exactly like I imagined them, the scenery was just mind blowing and the story itself was pretty much as in the books (except some bits here and there). What was quite funny Christopher Lee, who played Saruman in the films, turned out to be a massive LOTR Fan too. He said he’s reading the books at least once a year too, so I’m not the only sad person, hah 
Since I was a child I was also very interested in ancient Egypt (everything BC), so it’s no surprise that I read many, many books about this subject, mainly about the Pharaoh’s. I know, most of the stuff is guessing and not really biographical, but they gave me a little insight in how they lived, about their culture, gods, day to day life. Anyway, all the Pharaoh’s were quite interesting, some of them nuts, some of them plain stupid (or both), but I really liked Ramses II. most. Strangely, as much as I love Egypt, I never travelled to that country. Hopefully one day I will though.
Just a quickie back to the Fantasy books. Since the release of the Lord of the Rings films, quite a lot of books appeared about the different races of Middle Earth. I read almost all of them. About the Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, Trolls, Halflings etc. and most of them were very well written.
One of the best Fantasy authors (in my humble opinion) is Terry Pratchett and his Disc Wold Novels are absolutely funny. I haven’t read them all yet but I can already tell you my favourite one so far – “Mort”. I love Death in the books and his little friend Rat Death and I can’t wait to read all the others. Another good writer, if not brilliant one, is Terry Brooks. I read all the Shannara-books and at the moment I’m on the 3rd part of the Landover-books which are very entertaining.
In the last three (or so) years I began to read more singer/band/music biographies, with “Lennon – The Definite Biography” as a starter. I love that book so much, because you get not just a “lovely, nice” John Lennon but also see the “darker” side of him. Some other interesting bio’s were about Pink Floyd, Freddie Mercury and Alice Cooper (which was quite fun to read).
Well, I could go on and on about the books I’ve read and want to read, but I don’t want to bore you too much here I don’t know, I can’t imagine my life without books and I will make sure I’ll always find an hour or two for reading. I have lost count of how many books I read in my life, but it must have been 100′s of them. As you can imagine, book shops are my favourite shops (next to show shops, clothes shops…etc 
) and I never leave them without buying at least one book.
Maybe you understand my passion of books, maybe not, but they surely shaped me.
