At a young age, deciphering the lettering in the pages of a book became No. 1 on the list of my favourite things and if it is possible to say, I would say that I gobbled up literature with such veracity, that one would think it was an Olympic contest.

The adventure that I have with books has led to a rhyme or two words.

Out of my forays in reading, I got to learn that I am an incurable romantic realist *if such a term exists* and I always look for the happy endings or at least something heartwarming.

I read several horrors after a fad and found it absolutely not to my taste.

Yes, I admit, the amount of Mills & Boons, Harlequin Romances, Barbara Cartlands, Penny Jordan’s, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Amanda Quick and the rest of the crew that I read, must have contributed some coins from my piggy bank to the authors pockets and it’s amazing how much content the brain can take in and still keep soaking up more each day.

Ah! These brings back the days of mobile library and the ice-cream van to my mind. The two always seemed to come around the school premises almost at the same time and now that I think about it, that ice-cream man must have been responsible for my love for sweets. Just imagine bringing my two favourite things together 😉

I digress. Back to some of the books that caught my mind, held my thoughts and stoked my imagination enough to steal into the toilet for a quick page of reading when I was meant to be watching the beans on the fire and yes, a page turned to several and the beans got burnt.

For this weeks The books that transport me, chapter 1.4 of TGBOL, these ones come easily to my mind:

1. Lorna Doone  – Richard Doddridge Blackmore
2. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
4. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
5. The Basket Of Flowers – Christope Von Schmid
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
7. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
8. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
9. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
10. The Count of Monte Cristo  – Alexandre Dumas
11. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
12. Gone with the wind – Margaret Mitchell
13. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
14. Sands Of Time – Sidney Sheldon
15. The Secret Garden – Frances Burnett
16. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
17. The Merchant Of Venice – William Shakespeare
18. Comics of : Archie, Betty & Veronica, Jughead, ASTERIX, TinTin
19. Fairy tales by The Brothers Grimms
20. Enid Blyton books

Numbers 18, 19 and 20, I pretend to buy for my children and still sneak in a good read and a chortle. Please, you are free to think whatever, I am still a child at heart 😉

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha