Books! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tonight I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've seen the movie in both versions (I like the older version WAY more). It's a little surprising I've never read this book before, not only because it's good and I like the movies but also because Roald Dahl is my number 1 favorite children's author.

Among my other favorites of his books are The BFG (Big Friendly Giant), Matilda, The Witches and George's Marvelous Medicine. For those of you noticing that 3 books mentioned so far are movies, he also wrote James and the Giant Peach (a cute movie but much better book). I also own The Roald Dahl Treasury which has many of his short stories.

I like seeing what's different between each version of the movie and the book. For instance, none of the 3 have quite the same ending. No, I'm not going to spoil it here. Go read it, only 162 very quick pages and I picked it up in a used book store for only $2.50.

Finishing this book adds to another one of my goals as well. Currently I am going through a book called 501 Must Read Books and this marks the 17th book I can cross off. Books are categorized by genre (Children's, Sci Fi, Fiction, History, Memoirs, etc) and authors aren't usually mentioned twice. I've found many of my favorites in the list and read some new favorites as a result of this book. Life of Pi is a gem I discovered in this process. I highly recommend that book to anyone.

For anyone who's interested, here are the books I've finished thus far:

Life of Pi

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Cosmicomics

Little Women

Adventures of Huck Finn

Anne of Green Gables

Catcher in the Rye

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The Secret Garden

Stranger in a Strange Land

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Where The Wild Things Are

A Wrinkle in Time

The Last Unicorn

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

A Christmas Carol