Favourite reads - Fiction

Can never understand people/ quizzes that ask you to choose your favourite book. How can they expect anyone who reads to have one favourite book? My pick always keeps changing according to what mood I'm in, so every time I'm asked this question, the answer keeps on changing. But these are the ones that recur:

My Family And Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
The Durrell family are hands down the funniest and most eccentric bunch of people you could hope to come across among the covers of a book. It is not possible to read this book without laughing - I have tested this statement with a wide range of friends and colleagues who all guiltily admit to roaring their heads off when reading it - and after you finish it, the characters will stay with you. A great cheer-me-up book.

Vanload To Venice - Verily Anderson
I bought this book for 20 bucks on the pavement and have enoyed it hugely ever since. It's such a simple story - about a gung-ho British family who decide to drive to Venice, but it has such a light air and such amusing characters that I fell in love with it and have stayed in love with it. The book is so unknown that when I ran a search for the author on Google Blog search, I got no results, but I stand by my stand - this is a funny, souffle-light and pleasing read.

Katherine - Anya Seton
This is rather over-dramatised and racy, but the story of Katherine de Roet from ducal mistress to a duchess of England is fascinating - and real. I remember finding a copy of this book when on holiday in Kerala and it was like finding an old friend - I got permission from the hotel manager to carry the book from Thekkady to Kumarakom (only made possible by the fact that I was staying with the same chain of hotels).

The Grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer
If I had to be a fictional heroine, I would be Sophy, because she's intrepid, tall, good-looking and completely able to cope with whatever life throws at her - in fact she goes looking for adventure. The story of how she comes to stay with her aunt's family and changes all their lives for the better is hilarious and something I come back to time and again.

Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
'Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but few men realised it when caught in her charms as the Tarleton twins were' - thus begins one of the best-loved books about the American Civil War. Although it's clearly written from a white, Caucasian point of view, Mitchell's store of family lore, from where she drew her material for the book, makes this a gripping page-turner. You may not sympathise with the Confederate cause (since they were clearly slave-owners), but you will still find yourself rooting for the characters (especially Scarlett) as they struggle to survive the war, and of course, if you are a woman, you will fall in love with Rhettt Butler.

Stand up and speak out!

First they came for the communists,
And I did not speak out — because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists,
And I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists,
And I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews,
And I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

This is even more relevant now in our world.....