Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

I know that if you mentioned Seabiscuit to anyone, chances are that they will reply, " The movie?". I have to say that I was one of them, I saw the movie first before reading the novel, though the novel was #1 on the New York Time's bestseller's list. After reading the novel, it took me the whole day to finish it, I have to say that the novel was way better than the movie. It managed to capture the emotions; the triumphs and the losses, the laughter and the tears, with much more clarity than the film. Seabiscuit comes to life in the hands of Hillenbrand, who turned out an engaging, exciting novel.

I didn't know much about the world of thoroughbred horse racing, my knowledge was limited to fancy names for the horses ( how do they come up with all those names? ) and that jockeys are short and that the horses are worth a lot of money. The one time I had seen horse racing was when I went with my professor to see his horse race. It didn't win but it was a beautiful horse, to my untrained eye. I didn't even know what a handicap race is or which races are included in the Triple Crown. But after reading this book, I am proud to say that I can tell you what a handicap race is, though in depth details are still a mystery to me.

Seabiscuit's story, the life of an underdog who achieved the impossible through the help of three men, had entranced the American people during a time when they desperately needed a hero. The book is filled with meticulously researched details about Seabicuit's, Charles Howard's, Red Pollard's and Tom Smith's lives; how they intertwined and how each had affected the other's life. Seabicuit had in him blue blood, his grandfather being the famous Man O' War who is considered as the greatest racehorse ever, so he had speed in his genes but most importantly, Seabiscuit had the Heart ( as corny as this may sound, it proved to be a factor that made Seabiscuit a legend ). However, it took three men and a lady to bring that out in him. The most exciting part of the book and of course the movie, was the famous race between Seabicuit and War Admiral ( who incidently is his uncle, his sire being the great Man O' War ) at the Pimlico's race track on the afternoon of November 1st, 1938. Seabiscuit's and Pollard's triumphant comeback at the hundred-grander, was another emotional highlight of the book, a perfect end to a fairytale story.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

The title of this novel intrigued me when I first saw it and I decided I had to buy it. I have not read any of the reviews before reading this book, only the synopsis at the back. It is written in a first person narrative, the person being Christopher, an autistic 15 year old boy who lives with his father. Christopher understands facts and details, he lives on rules and order but relationships and emotions make little sense to him. He cannot tell a lie or jokes. He hates being touched and reacts violently to it. He finds people confusing because he cannot make sense of the various facial expressions that people seem to possess.

Then, one day, when his neighbour's dog, Wellington, was killed, he decided to solve the mystery with the help of his favourite novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. When he embarked on this quest to find the murderer, he ended up finding more than just the identity of the murderer. Secrets about his family will be revealed to him that would change his well ordered life and the lives of those around him. His relationship with his father in particular was heartbreaking to read. This book is beautifully written, funny and sad at the same time with a bittersweet ending.

After reading this book, I searched the internet for the reviews and every single one had nothing but praise for this book which I heartily agree. It is written simply but that in no way undermines the strength of the emotion of this book. Apparently, they are going to make a film based on this book ( this comes as no surprise....it has *oscar* material written all over it ). I do hope however that they will make a decent job out of it. If not, stick to the book. It does not disappoint.

Pride and Prejudice

This remains one of my most beloved books ever. I know that The Observer’s list picked Emma over my Pride and Prejudice and I understood why but somehow, Emma never quite warm up to me the way Pride and Prejudice did. I am a sucker for love stories, well told ones of course, though I had been known to read trashy novels from time to time! Yup, I am not ashamed to say that I read them, I would like to think that I am the type of person who would give anything a try!

This book by Jane Austen, tells the story of the quick-witted lovely Elizabeth Bennet and the haughty, handsome and of course, filthy rich Mr. Darcy. As expected, Lizzie and Darcy will end up together in holy matrimony by the end of the book, but their journey down the aisle is littered with prejudices and pride, hence the title. Their lives, which are worlds apart, one is rich in wealth and the other in wit, collides when Mr. Darcy’s friend, Mr. Bingley, decides to buy a house in the countryside. As Elizabeth’s mother would put it, "a single man of large fortune, must be in want of a wife” and sets about trying to get him married to one of her daughters. And that put into motion a string of events that would bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together. Their first fateful encounter did not start in a friendly fashion, however, with Mr. Darcy uttering, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me” when asked by Mr. Bingley why he would not ask Elizabeth to dance with him.

Mr. Darcy….man, if there ever was a man who had a stick up his arse ( to quote from Bridget Jones ) he is the one! To me, the one person who had successfully brought Mr. Darcy to life was Colin Firth in the BBC drama adaptation of the book and he reprised that role in the Bridget Jones movies. As you most probably had known, the hilarious Bridget Jones’ Diary novel was based on Pride and Prejudice. Poor Colin Firth will most probably forever be known as Mr Darcy due to his Darcy roles in BBC and Bridget and his “wet T-shirt” scene in the BBC drama will stay in his adoring fans’ mind forever!

This novel is so popular that it had spawned the successful Bridget Jones novels and movies, the BBC adaptation and most recently, Bride and Prejudice, the movie that was a joint production between Bollywood and Hollywood. I thought that the movie was hilarious not because that it was meant to be hilarious, but because I could not see Martin Henderson as the Bollywood hero. I also read that they are making a film version of Pride and Prejudice, set in England, staring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth.

The author, Jane Austen, also wrote several famous novels; Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion to name a few. If you are interested to read her books, then I suggest you pick up either Pride and Prejudice or Emma for starters.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three Quarters by Sue Townsend

"Wednesday June 10th

Pandora and I are in love! It is official! She told Claire Nelson, who told Nigel, who told me. I told Nigel to tell Claire to tell Pandora that I return her love. I am over the moon with joy. I can overlook the fact that Pandora smokes five Benson and Hedges a day and has her own lighter. When you are in love such things cease to matter."

Even if you are edging towards the 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s, you should pick this book up! It is a hilarious, bittersweet account of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4, going through all the trials and tribulations of a teenage life, with the added complications of his parents' marital troubles. He is in LOVE with Pandora, he is sexually frustrated, he has a high regard of his own 'intellectual' capabilities, his hillarious attempts at poetry is under appreciated and he has to battle with zits sprouting on his face. On top of that, he has to deal with his dysfunctional family. And what sets him apart from other teenage boys is that he actually keeps a diary! I couldn't stop laughing when I read this book. Of course, the story doesn't end here, you can follow Adrian's life through the years by a series of sequels starting with The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole, Adrian Mole from Minor to Major, Adrian Mole - The Wilderness Years and Adrian Mole - The Cappuccino Years.

The Observer's List

I found yet another list of 100 greatest books of all time, this time by The Observer, who created this list at the same time as BBC. Read the review at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1061036,00.html
If you didn't agree with the BBC's list, which reflects a more recent list of titles, you might find this more to your liking.

Taken from The Observer,
Sunday October 12, 2003

1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
The story of the gentle knight and his servant Sancho Panza has entranced readers for centuries.

2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan
The one with the Slough of Despond and Vanity Fair.

3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
The first English novel.

4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
A wonderful satire that still works for all ages, despite the savagery of Swift's vision.

5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
The adventures of a high-spirited orphan boy: an unbeatable plot and a lot of sex ending in a blissful marriage.

6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
One of the longest novels in the English language, but unputdownable.

7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
One of the first bestsellers, dismissed by Dr Johnson as too fashionable for its own good.

8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
An epistolary novel and a handbook for seducers: foppish, French, and ferocious.

9. Emma Jane Austen
Near impossible choice between this and Pride and Prejudice. But Emma never fails to fascinate and annoy.

10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Inspired by spending too much time with Shelley and Byron.

11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock
A classic miniature: a brilliant satire on the Romantic novel.

12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac
Two rivals fight for the love of a femme fatale. Wrongly overlooked.

13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
Penetrating and compelling chronicle of life in an Italian court in post-Napoleonic France.

14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
A revenge thriller also set in France after Bonaparte: a masterpiece of adventure writing.

15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli
Apart from Churchill, no other British political figure shows literary genius.

16. David Copperfield Charles Dickens
This highly autobiographical novel is the one its author liked best.

17. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have passed into the language. Impossible to ignore.

18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Obsessive emotional grip and haunting narrative.

19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
The improving tale of Becky Sharp.

20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
A classic investigation of the American mind.

21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville
'Call me Ishmael' is one of the most famous opening sentences of any novel.

22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
You could summarise this as a story of adultery in provincial France, and miss the point entirely.

23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
Gripping mystery novel of concealed identity, abduction, fraud and mental cruelty.

24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll
A story written for the nine-year-old daughter of an Oxford don that still baffles most kids.

25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott
Victorian bestseller about a New England family of girls.

26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope
A majestic assault on the corruption of late Victorian England.

27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
The supreme novel of the married woman's passion for a younger man.

28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot
A passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and unsettling.

29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mystical tragedy by the author of Crime and Punishment.

30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
The story of Isabel Archer shows James at his witty and polished best.

31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
Twain was a humorist, but this picture of Mississippi life is profoundly moral and still incredibly influential.

32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
A brilliantly suggestive, resonant study of human duality by a natural storyteller.

33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
One of the funniest English books ever written.

34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
A coded and epigrammatic melodrama inspired by his own tortured homosexuality.

35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
This classic of Victorian suburbia will always be renowned for the character of Mr Pooter.

36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
Its savage bleakness makes it one of the first twentieth-century novels.

37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers
A prewar invasion-scare spy thriller by a writer later shot for his part in the Irish republican rising.

38. The Call of the Wild Jack London
The story of a dog who joins a pack of wolves after his master's death.

39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad
Conrad's masterpiece: a tale of money, love and revolutionary politics.

40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
This children's classic was inspired by bedtime stories for Grahame's son.

41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
An unforgettable portrait of Paris in the belle epoque. Probably the longest novel on this list.

42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
Novels seized by the police, like this one, have a special afterlife.

43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
This account of the adulterous lives of two Edwardian couples is a classic of unreliable narration.

44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
A classic adventure story for boys, jammed with action, violence and suspense.

45. Ulysses James Joyce
Also pursued by the British police, this is a novel more discussed than read.

46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
Secures Woolf's position as one of the great twentieth-century English novelists.

47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster
The great novel of the British Raj, it remains a brilliant study of empire.

48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
The quintessential Jazz Age novel.

49. The Trial Franz Kafka
The enigmatic story of Joseph K.

50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway
He is remembered for his novels, but it was the short stories that first attracted notice.

51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine
The experiences of an unattractive slum doctor during the Great War: a masterpiece of linguistic innovation.

52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
A strange black comedy by an American master.

53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Dystopian fantasy about the world of the seventh century AF (after Ford).

54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh
The supreme Fleet Street novel.

55. USA John Dos Passos
An extraordinary trilogy that uses a variety of narrative devices to express the story of America.

56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
Introducing Philip Marlowe: cool, sharp, handsome - and bitterly alone.

57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
An exquisite comedy of manners with countless fans.

58. The Plague Albert Camus
A mysterious plague sweeps through the Algerian town of Oran.

59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
This tale of one man's struggle against totalitarianism has been appropriated the world over.

60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
Part of a trilogy of astonishing monologues in the black comic voice of the author of Waiting for Godot.

61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
A week in the life of Holden Caulfield. A cult novel that still mesmerises.

62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
A disturbing novel of religious extremism set in the Deep South.

63. Charlotte's Web E. B. White
How Wilbur the pig was saved by the literary genius of a friendly spider.

64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
Enough said!

65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
An astonishing debut: the painfully funny English novel of the Fifties.

66. Lord of the Flies William Golding
Schoolboys become savages: a bleak vision of human nature.

67. The Quiet American Graham Greene
Prophetic novel set in 1950s Vietnam.

68 On the Road Jack Kerouac
The Beat Generation bible.

69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert's obsession with Lolita is a tour de force of style and narrative.

70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
Hugely influential, Rabelaisian novel of Hitler's Germany.

71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
Nigeria at the beginning of colonialism. A classic of African literature.

72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
A writer who made her debut in The Observer - and her prose is like cut glass.

73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Scout, a six-year-old girl, narrates an enthralling story of racial prejudice in the Deep South.

74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller
'[He] would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.'

75. Herzog Saul Bellow
Adultery and nervous breakdown in Chicago.

76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A postmodern masterpiece.

77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
A haunting, understated study of old age.

78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre
A thrilling elegy for post-imperial Britain.

79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
The definitive novelist of the African-American experience.

80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge
Macabre comedy of provincial life.

81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
This quasi-documentary account of the life and death of Gary Gilmore is possibly his masterpiece.

82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino
A strange, compelling story about the pleasures of reading.

83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
The finest living writer of English prose. This is his masterpiece: edgily reminiscent of Heart of Darkness.

84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
Bleak but haunting allegory of apartheid by the Nobel prizewinner.

85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson
Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women.

86. Lanark Alasdair Gray
Seething vision of Glasgow. A Scottish classic.

87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
Dazzling metaphysical thriller set in the Manhattan of the 1970s.

88. The BFG Roald Dahl
A bestseller by the most popular postwar writer for children of all ages.

89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi
A prose poem about the delights of chemistry.

90. Money Martin Amis
The novel that bags Amis's place on any list.

91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
A collaborator from prewar Japan reluctantly discloses his betrayal of friends and family.

92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey
A great contemporary love story set in nineteenth-century Australia by double Booker prizewinner.

93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera
Inspired by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, this is a magical fusion of history, autobiography and ideas.

94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie
In this entrancing story Rushdie plays with the idea of narrative itself.

95. La Confidential James Ellroy
Three LAPD detectives are brought face to face with the secrets of their corrupt and violent careers.

96. Wise Children Angela Carter
A theatrical extravaganza by a brilliant exponent of magic realism.

97. Atonement Ian McEwan
Acclaimed short-story writer achieves a contemporary classic of mesmerising narrative conviction.

98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman
Lyra's quest weaves fantasy, horror and the play of ideas into a truly great contemporary children's book.

99. American Pastoral Philip Roth
For years, Roth was famous for Portnoy's Complaint . Recently, he has enjoyed an extraordinary revival.

100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald
Posthumously published volume in a sequence of dream-like fictions spun from memory, photographs and the German past.

Who did we miss?

So, are you congratulating yourself on having read everything on our list or screwing the newspaper up into a ball and aiming it at the nearest bin?

Are you wondering what happened to all those American writers from Bret Easton Ellis to Jeffrey Eugenides, from Jonathan Franzen to Cormac McCarthy?

Have women been short-changed? Should we have included Pat Barker, Elizabeth Bowen, A.S. Byatt, Penelope Fitzgerald, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch?

What's happened to novels in translation such as Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, Hesse's Siddhartha, Mishima's The Sea of Fertility, Süskind's Perfume and Zola's Germinal?

Writers such as J.G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Anthony Burgess, Bruce Chatwin, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, Nick Hornby, Russell Hoban, Somerset Maugham and V.S. Pritchett narrowly missed the final hundred. Were we wrong to lose them?

Let us know what you think. Send your own suggestions for the 100 best books ever to:

observer@guardianunlimited.co.uk Or debate the choices live with Robert McCrum at 3pm on Wednesday

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