okay, not as i remember it (though that was the german version...)! but still very good, makes me want to watch the film again!!=^>

quite moralic and it does lose a bit in the translation. it sounds wonderfully formal and old-fashioned in the english!! kind of like reading the narnia books again! oh they were great...

I was delighted to be passed this book by Ffyrestarr when we met in Birmingham yesterday. It is a beautiful edition with lovely illustrations and coloured text.

Knowing there are many others who would like to read this, I will not leave it languishing for too long, but I must put actual Ring and Ray books ahead of it on the pile. So have patience, folks, please!

I'm ashamed to have hung on to this lovely book for so long, but I finally got around to reading it and, although it's taken a few weeks, I eventually finished it.

As a general rule, I would say I am not a fan of Fantasy, but I wanted to read this book because it is one of those well-known stories that one feels "everyone ought to know" and such an attractive book with it's red and green text and it's wonderful "illuminated" initials at the start of every chapter.

It did take me some effort to get "into" the book at the start, but I began to enjoy it more as I read on and I found it an interesting and thought-provoking work. I don't think I will be reading it again, ever, but I am very pleased that I have read it the once.

I will now try and find a new reader who will appreciate it.

I am collecting names for a BookRay and will probably send it out to the first participant on 8 Feb.

This is the list so far:

Aubriel
Scaree
Tiggsybabes
Kittynic
Winterson
Molyneux
Loopy1

Arrived today - thank you :-)

When I first opened this book I was in the office and the first words someone said when discovering what I was reading were "Oh that was a really great film!". However, I have to admit that I can barely remember it and the more I read the book the more I doubted I had ever seen it as what I was reading didn't really tally with my recollections. After finishing the story I decided to do a little research into the film and I now understand a little better why. In the best traditions of film adaptations it would appear much was cut from the book and apparently Michael Ende was so disappointed with the end result he insisted his name was removed from the opening credits (a small mention is included in the end credits).

Why do I include all this trivia? Well because I urge anyone to read this book whether you have seen the film or not as it is far superior in depth, imagination and content. I am one of these people that can rarely sit through an adaptation of a book after reading the original and I suspect I would have to put my TV in if I even attempted to watch this now;-)

Admittedly, there is a shift in the emphasis and plot of this story (which I don't want to spoil for those who do not know it) that I did struggle with. I was really enjoying the first part of the story and so when the switch was made and I took some time to adapt to the change. I think this was more me than the story though if you see what I mean.

I don't know what the prevailing climate was like towards this book when first published, but suspect that if it was anything like today then it would have been considered a children's book simply by virtue of the fact the main protagonist was a child, but there is a depth to the story that is simply not aimed at a child. Not that children could not enjoy the variety and imagination of this tale, but there is a quality would be lost on them. I can understand Ffyrestarrs comparison of these books with the Narnia books, Narnia books certainly have the similar morality but in a more concise and simplified way, The Never Ending Story requires the reader to ponder more on it's questions if they so wish...