Dog Days...

Booking through Thursday

What Animal-related books have I read?

Which do I love?

Do I have a favourite literary dog?

This has ended up as a rather long list of wonderful books...  I hadn't realised just how many animal characters I have really loved reading about over the years.  Some are real.  Some are toys who become real or real who become toys.  Some are magical in some way.  Some are cartoons.  But all I have truly adored.  I thought I should probably divide them into groups but they are in no order of preference.

Cats

The Wild Road (and the sequels in the series) by Gabriel King

Its a Magical World - Hobbes - Bill Watterson

Born Free - Joy Adamson

Gobbolino the Witch's Cat - Ursula Williams

The Cat in the Hat - Dr Seuss

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T S Eliot

Garfield Whatever - Jim Davis

Adolphus Tips - Michael Morpurgo

Horses & Unicorns

Black Beauty - Anna Sewell

The Little White Horse - Elizabeth Goudge

The Last Unicorn - Peter S Beagle

The Black Unicorn - Terry Brooks

Moorland Mousie - Golden Gorse

Dogs

Grey Friars Bobby - Eleanor Atkinson

Roverandom - J R R Tolkien

Lassie Come Home - Eric Knight

101 Dalmatians - Dodie Smith

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

White Fang - Jack London

The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford

Fantastic Mr Fox - Roald Dahl

Peanuts Jubilee - Snoopy - Charles M Shulz

Birds and Flying Beasts

The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark - Jill Tomlinson

The White Dragon (and other Pern books) - Anne McCaffrey

The Ice Dragon - George R R Martin

The Snow Goose - Paul Gallico

Rodents

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett

Manx Mouse - Paul Gallico

Martin's Mice - Dick King Smith

Rabbits

Watership Down - Richard Adams

Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams

The Brer Rabbit Book - Enid Blyton

Others

Ingo (And the others in the quartet) - Helen Dunmore

Charlottes Web - E B White

The Snow Spider Trilogy - Jenni Nimmo

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Elmer - David McKee

Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson

With these novels I find that they are often heart wrenching in places and exciting in others.  A few of these books are particular personal favourites that I have read many times Velveteen Rabbit and Brer Rabbit were two of the rabbit stories I loved.  As a child we had many pets, particular favourites of mine were rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, dogs and cats.  

My favourite literary dog is a draw... two very different books, I love Bobby the loyal little dog in Grey Friar's Bobby and I adore Buck the stolen pet who ends up in the Yukon Territory working on a dog Sledge team in Call of the Wild.

Hmmm... Book Numbers...

Booking Through Thursday

Size Matters

What's the largest your personal library has ever been?  What's the greatest number of books you've ever owned at one time?  (Estimates are fine.)

Is your collection NOW the biggest it's ever been?  Or have you down-sized?

What's the fewest number of books you've ever owned (not counting your pre-reading years)?

Gosh...  Tricky questions.  I have always preferred not to actually count all my books because that might make me realise I probably have more books than I actually need.  This is only an estimate because I didn't venture into the attic which also has shelving for books...  I have 10 large bookcases (6 shelves per book case and 1 metre wide).  The novels, autobiographies etc are packed fill their shelves at 2 books deep and averaging 15 books high...  approximately 30 shelves of these 2700 books... and about 30 shelves of non-fiction including recipe books, gardening, art, knitting, patchwork, historty etc...  Okay, that works out at approximately 4000 books in our house (I haven't included all the books that live on shelves in the attic nor all my books that have crept down to inhabit bookshelves in my mum's house... they would be another story for another day)...

I think I can quite honestly say that my book collection is the largest it has ever been.  Now and again, I try to send a few to the charity shop or I sell a few on Amazon but invariable a month later I am searching for the book that I thought I no longer wanted.  I do try periodically to get rid of books that I don't think I will read again or the odd book that I thought I would enjoy reading but never did.  No choice really because I am running out of space and do have piles of books sitting around in front of book cases and use the tops of the bookcases as additional bookcase shelving.

I cannot remember not having books.  My mum always had lots of books.  When we were in our early teens my brother and I used to love going around all the second hand bookshops in Smithfield Market looking for new interesting ones to read.  Then I went to university and continued working my way around the second hand bookshops in Leeds.  When I was travelling home...  (my mum had a friend of a friend who offered to put my stuff into the back of their lorry on their way back from dropping off a load)  I think he was a little shocked when my boxes of books started to come down the 4 flights of stairs...  I even got rid of half of my clothes as I knew I only had a certain amount of space... but the books all came home with me.

I suppose the thing that has changed is what I like to read...  I don't read the classics Hardy, Austen, Dickens etc quite as often as I should and find myself reaching for a fantasy novel more often...