Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

When spoilt young Harvey Cheyne, son of a multi-millionaire, falls overboard from the ocean liner taking his mother and himself to Europe, he is picked up by a passing fisherman from the Gloucester schooner "We're Here" just beginning its seasons catch.

The captain, believing Harvey to be mad from his wild talk of reward and famous people, refuses to take the boy home until after the fishing season, but justly offers Harvey the chance to work along side his son Dan, a boy of Harvey’s age, with fair wages to help them bring in the catch.

Through disasters and triumphs, in this coming of age, maritime adventure novel, Harvey finds there is more to life than luxury and learns the value of hard work. As Harvey grows from a boy into a man, Kipling masterfully weaves adventure on the high seas with moral insights from the 19th century that are relevant to all generations since.

This book counts towards the 100+ book challenge.

lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H Lawrence

Written in 1928 and possible the most well known of D H Lawrence novels, this final book shocked the world with its explicit subject matter and was banned until the 1960s.

But for a banned book I was not overly impressed. Perhaps my generation has grown too used to romance being spelled out across movie screens and in books, so this novel is no longer notable for the shockingly detailed affair between an upper class Lady and her husband’s game Keeper.

I found its plot lacking, in originality and substance. The narrator, Margaret Hilton, did nothing to impress me. There was so much politics and philosophy I felt like I was should be back at school studying it (although I don’t think many high schools would teach such a book!). And to be quite honest I have read better sex scenes.

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Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling

“The children were at the Theatre, acting to Three Cows as much as they could remember of Midsummer Night's Dream.”

So begins a time of magic for Dan and Una. It was Midsummer’s Eve and the children have performed the play three times, unwittingly, inside a fairy ring near their home in Sussex. The summoning calls up the mischievous Puck, the last of the People of the Hill left in merry old England. Puck gives them the gift “to see what they shall see and hear what they shall hear, though it should have happened three thousand year;” through which they witness a host of characters who tell, through their stories, the making of England.

Kipling’s adventurous tales and accompanying poems, including the well-known “If-” and “A Smuggler’s Song”, blend familiar accounts of history with fresh and unique insight for the enjoyment of adult and child a like.

Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

“Fascinating, agonizing…Superb.” – Birmingham News

Charlie Gordon, born with a low IQ of 68, has been offered the opportunity to increase his mental capacity. He will be the first human guinea pig for an experimentally surgery that the researchers hope will increase his intelligence. The doctors are optimistic as Algernon, the white mouse they experimented on, has become extremely smart.

As the effects of the procedure begins to show, Charlie's intelligence expands at a phenomenal rate surpassing even the predictions of his doctors. His old memories return with clarity and Charlie begins to understand that being smart and remembering comes with cruel shocks. He begins to remember his childhood rejection by both his family and schoolmates. At the bakery where he worked, Charlie soon learns that the people he had always called friends had always been making fun of him. His sudden intelligence makes those who previously knew him uncomfortable, and Charlie comes to the realization that he no longer fits in his old world.

While Charlie is still trying to find his place, Algernon begins to deteriorate. Now Charlie must use all of his superior intelligence to find out if the same thing will happen to him.

Told through heartrending “progris riports” that Charlie is asked to write for the researchers, this intense Hugo, Nebula and Oscar winning classic gives voice to the vast emotional journey of Charlie experiences.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This is a book that can be enjoyed by young and old alike. It tells two stories - one of Atticus Finch, an attorney in a small southern town during the depression. The other of his daughter, Scout.

Atticus, knowing that he'll very likely lose, agrees to defend a man that has been wrongly accused of a hate crime. Scout, a precocious child who utimately discovers all that is good within herself.

My favorite part of the book was the scene in which Atticus gives his daughter this advice: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it." I felt that Scout took that piece of advice and in her own childlike way tried to understand the pain endured by Tom Robinson, the man her father is defending; and the cowardice of Robert Ewell, the father of his accuser.

A wonderfully well written book of endurance, honesty and justice.

Written by Lisa Keith

Persuasion by Jane Austen

This book is as current today as when it was written in 1816, because the themes of rekindled romance and overcoming barriers to romance are also current. At the age of 19, Anne Elliot, daughter of a baronet, falls in love with Frederick Wentworth, who has no fortune or title. Anne is persuaded by a close family friend, Lady Russell, to refuse Wentworth’s proposal of marriage. Eight years later, he returns as Captain Wentworth with his fortune made, but with some bitterness towards Anne for having let herself be talked out of marrying him. By now her family has had financial problems and must move from their family home to Bath. Without giving away all the twists and turns that keep throwing Anne and Frederick together, let me just say it is a very entertaining story, well worth your time to read.