Book Meme

I've been tagged by Stuart over at Scottish Independence Blog. He would like to know what my favourite books are.

I don't know how many books I own, probably 500 or so. But they are all back in England, here in Canada I have just one - Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Last book that I read (fiction):

Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach - A weird but entertaining short book about a seagull who transcends the bonds of earth and does some weird out of body flying. Bizarre but good.

Last Book that I read (non-fiction):

A Commotion in the Blood by Stephen S Hall(The history of immunology and cancer cell biology and how the treatments have affected those patients that have undergone them).

Last book that I bought:

A signed copy of The Last Englishman by Peter Rex (follow up the The English Resistance of which I also bought a signed copy). I was living in Ely, home of Hereward the Wake, at the time.

Last fiction book that I bought:

I bought a copy of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy - I bought this in Ghana second hand for about 1p and read it by the pool. It wasn't as good as Far from the Madding Crowd but it is also a book that transports all Englishmen back to the romantic England that probably never existed but nevertheless exists in all our minds.

Five books that mean a lot to me (this is extremely tricky but here goes):

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - The tale of a cathederal builder in the 12C who travels around England and France building cathederals.

Katherine by Anya Seton - A bodice ripping historical tale documenting the life of Katherine Swynford and, in particular, her relationship with Plantagenet warlord John O'Gaunt. The story features Chaucer and, for at least part of the time, centres around my home town of Kenilworth where John O'Gaunt kept the grandest castle in all England. It's also my mum's favourite book.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - The agnostics' bible, Dawkins stands on the shoulders of Darwin.

1984 by George Orwell (just pips Animal Farm) - Take note David Blunkett and Charles Clarke.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Similarly doom-ladened and fantastic prophesy of the future.

In order to keep inconvenience to a minimum I would also like to know the books of choice of John at the England Project and Tom Griffin at Green Ribbon (same as Stuart), and I will add Wonko at Wonko the Sane, Ethelred the nearly ready at Cross of St George and Alfie the OK as new book-tagged victims.