I have finished two books today, both very different.

1. Positively Happy by Noel Edmunds. Thought this was more an Edmunds Biography than a self-help book. It told of what Cosmic Ordering had done for him, and very little about how, or what, it would do for us/me. The person who lent it to me had not been impressed. When I have read a book, I like to have a look on Google, to see what other people think, - not a lot seemed to be the answer!

2. The Last Empress, by Anchee Min. I had read the previous book to this "Princess Orchid" and really enjoyed it, so had been looking forward to this book. It is the story of the last Chinese Empress, it dealt with the ladies later life at a more turbulent time in Chinas' history (approx 100 years ago). Very interesting but maybe more historical than novel. Again I googled the author. Very interesting lady, now living in America. She has written more than these two books, so I shall try and find more of hers.

My name is James Apps.  I like many different genres; from children's books to classics.  I have read fantasy and enjoyed it, Sci-fi and had my thinking changed, Westerns and enjoyed the recognised pattern of the tales and treasured poetic classics such as Paradise Lost. 

I read plays and love the poetry of Shakespeare yet also can I appreciated the skill of captivating the reader in a Mills and Boon novelette.  Some books I can read again and again - excluding plays which can be read many times - and get fresh insights into the writer's meaning.  Yet for sheer fun give me The Wind in the Willows, Now we are Six and Hairy MaClary and I can enjoy them too. 

I have read The Lord of the Rings some eleven times and still get a thrill from the battle against Sauron and I can laugh yet again at Bertie Wooster and Yossarian's fascination with the Chaplain.  Likewise I cn thrill at the innocence of the Narnia stories and Maurice Gee's wonderful Half Men of O and feel no stranger to Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. 

I can balance these out by reading Plato and A Brief History of Time and expect to be reading at least two books concurrently.  I assume that most people read regularly and become agitated and surprised when I learn that many people do not read at all.  I don't count reading The Sun or the Mirror as reading (Snob) preferring the Beano and the Dandy to either rag - the comics are at least more honest.

Anyway, apart from being an insufferable bore I enjoy comedy in my reading as well as something deep and meaningful. 

I think this book is meant to be for kids and I really wish there had been books like this when I was growing up its just brilliant, one of the best Gaiman has written.

The story concerns Bod (short for Nobody) Owens who grows up in a graveyard, after he escapes a family massacre. In the graveyard Bod is brought up by ghosts, a vampire and a werewolf who work together to keep him safe from his family's killer.

Its difficult to say much about this book without giving too much away and it would be a real shame to spoil anyone's enjoyment of it suffice to say from the very dark beginning we are introduced to the many and varied inhabitants of the graveyard who come together to educate Bod and keep him safe. Along the way we are taken on a side trip to the world of the ghouls and a couple of trips into the land of the living where the horrors are just as real. As ever with Gaiman's books the characters are well rounded, the story full of twists and turns and quite a few laugh out loud moments.

Very much recommended