Crusaders takes quite a crusade to read – perfect for long holidays in the north of England but don’t be fooled by its historical name, this novel is very relevant to its setting in the 1980s and today. It follows John Gore, a political vicar as he tries to set up a new church in an impoverished area. You empathise with his character throughout the whole book which highlights some of the characters without his ‘christian spirit’. This book was especially relevant as it discussed the closure of the mines and the political situation in the late 1900s – highlighted in the papers after Thatcher’s death although the book is written from a Labour perspective. Richard T Kelly did lots of research for this book and the appearance of Tony Blair is based on a real event.

The Book was value for money for the amount of quality writing you receive but could do with more of a happy ending.

Lots of you have been sending in photos of your parcels you receive from us which we love, especially the ones including pets , so we thought we would make this trend a bit more interesting…

There are many easy ways to enter, send a photo of your awesomebooks order (or someone elses) with any caption you like and for the most interesting we will give you 10 free used books! with prizes for runners up! We don’t mind what the picture is, as long is it includes a book, something about reading or an awesomebooks package and you can be as creative as you like.

Photos can be posted on here, on our facebook wall www.facebook.com/AwesomeBooks ,tweeted to us at @AwesomeBooksUK, or emailed to press@awesomebooks.net. Its easier than filling in a form or answering questions and all you need is a digital, analog or phone camera (we may even allow drawings), and to be able to stop reading for a few seconds.

Enter now!

*No purchase necessary, entries close on the 31st June, if no photo can be considered the most interesting by the AwesomeBooks team a winner will be chosen at random, there will be no discrimination against books not bought from AwesomeBooks, more than one picture can be submitted, AwesomeBooks reserves the right to show off your photos.

I chose this book somewhat because of its clean line cover and because Mitch Albom was the AwesomeBooks Author of the month, and Tuesdays with Morrie seemed like depressing non fiction (also based on death). After reading “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” I will definitely give Mitch Albom’s work another go as I enjoyed his writing style.
Albom transports you into the life of Eddie a pier maintenance worker.. predictably the book begins with his death but the twists and turns following leave you guessing about Eddie’s life. (It is so tempting to give some of it away but that would change your enjoyment of the book).

The premise is less theological than you would imagine and Albom has managed to realistically simplify ideas about death into another believable world – this is better than most religious texts so don’t read if you are easily led.

The novel is short enough to be read in a couple of afternoons but the story will stay with you forever.

Cornelia spoke about her early life in Germany as being obsessed with the world of Narnia and Tom Sawyer and always feeling most at home in Britain (now her home is L.A).

She has written around 60 books in German, only 24 have been translated to English and even less with her own original illustrations. Funke said it was a shame that publishers did not want illustrations as Britain has a great history of illustrating books, from illustrations in Dickens novels to John Tenniel the illustrator of Alice in Wonderland.

Cornelia loves to get involved with her readers, even wearing the ‘fox’ costume from Reckless and she described her events for the book ‘Ghost Night’, based upon a statue in Salisbury Cathedral. “I love to give children places to go, (of course you can go to Hogwarts now), but you cannot go to Narnia, but you can go to Salisbury”.

Responding to questions from the audience Cornelia Funke told us that her favourite book as a child was The once and future King by T.H White and that she writes her first drafts in a Moleskine notebook, even printing out and sticking in her later drafts for editing.

As well as writing the third in the Reckless series Cornelia Funke has developed an app to show ‘mirror world’ from the books which sounds like a marvel of technology, allowing users to see the stories and still use their own imagination.

Cornelia Funke is a name that will continue to be associated with great children’s writing -although you are never too old to read her books- and we are looking forward to everything she has up and coming as well as the translation of her previous work.

The interview of Philip Pullman by Peter Kemp (chief fiction reviewer for the times) was great thought provoking hour, providing insight into the life of the author and his work.

Pullman received a fellowship of the Oxford Literary festival for his contributions and spoke about why he chose to set The Dark Materials trilogy here, even writing a spin off book Lyra’s Oxford to help readers link our Oxford with hers. In Lyra’s Oxford there is a nod to the Boring Postcards books, on hearing this Pullman’s interviewer, Peter Kemp  admitted his photo features in the series.

While listening to Pullman’s description of his writing technique we were struck by the differences between his and Joanna Trollope’s style as described in our last Blog post. Pullman said he liked to never face a blank page (or canvas) in the morning however he quoted  The letters of Vincent Van Gough who said “ the canvas is much more afraid of the painter”.

When writing  Northern Lights Pullman knew he wanted to write a trilogy (because it is easier to publish three small books than one epic novel) but did not know what the main themes were going to be until part of the way through, and compared editing to carpentry as he had to carve off ideas passages or chapters that did not belong in the book.

As well as the film ‘The Magnificent seven’, which Pullman admitted ‘stealing’ many ideas from; he credited the literary greats such as Milton’s Paradise Lost, Middlemarch (full of great narrative) and the poems of William Blake for developing his imagination and allowing him to become – as Peter Kemp described him- “a connoisseur of narrative”.

After an audience comment about the film of Northern Lights- Named the Golden Compass- Pullman recommended the stage production of the book and said that the series could work in a TV production, following the example of Game of Thrones.

At the moment he is working on a combined prelude and sequel (he hates the work prequel) called ‘The Book of Dust’ which is expected to be published in 2015.

Look out for our account of some other Oxford Literary Festival events later in the week and let us know if you are visiting.

The event was organised by The Hungerford Bookshop

Joanna championed the plight of independent bookshops and libraries and was posed with some tricky questions about her views of the Army after detailing her research for the novel.

Joanna Trollope described the similarity between her most recent novel and The Rector’s Wife as both novels show the plight of women whose husband’s ‘callings’ are valued by society. Joanna decided to write this novel to show how times have changes, but the same problems are still faced.

The Novelist described her writing process as: finding a situation, then researching it (she spent weeks on an army base) then defining the characters and how the story would end before she starts to write, (longhand for the first few drafts). With 17 Novels this process is incredibly fast and she estimates that a whole book can take around 2 years, however some books overlap.

The crowd at the village hall got us thinking about who goes to Author’s talks. We can remember meeting authors at a young age and it would seem that older people use them as a social activity, but where does everyone in-between getting their *starstruck* novelist fix? Which authors would you most like to meet?

Here is the low down on books you may have read or want to read once everyone is talking about the film:

Beautiful Creatures

The first book in the Caster Chronicles Series. This hit USA book is written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and is a typical, boy meets magical girl teen novel.

Safe Haven

Nicholas Sparks does romance, but this book has the twist of suspense instead of heartbreak as we find out the dark past of the main character.

The Great Gatsby

We love when classics are made into films and have been excited about this for months. The great Jay Gatsby holds extravagant parties, but who is he? and what tales can unfold of the ‘roaring 20s’.

- we have copies from £2.59!

Let us know if any of the films inspire you to read the book or books inspire you to watch the films.