To kick off, Martin, I think:

Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

And now, brain's stopped play.

D.

The second one is A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin.

The last one is The Magician's Nephew by C S Lewis

#3 is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.....

#4 The Man Who Was Magic by Paul Gallico

Is the common theme that of magic?

Indeed, that's the common theme. (I meant to include a Harry Potter book - I just forgot!)

Three left - two quite hard, I suspect, and one I thought was quite easy....but perhaps not?

LE - JBP
CBTD - GDG
TCOM - TP

The Color of Magic - Terry Pratchett

Number 5 is Lost Empires - J B Priestley

Martin, I had to check the 'magic' connection. Is it worth reading?

Lost Empires is most certainly worth reading - it's an exceptional book. Having reminded myself of it, I'll probably take it on holiday to re-read.

One left.

Think conjurers, rather than magic. A fairly recent book.

Martin.....

This is another subject altogther........
I was just reading a blurb about A DANGEROUS BOOK FOR BOYS and saw reference to 'conkers'.

Please explain!

Yvonne

I'm not Martin and not a Brit, but I think they are Chestnuts. Someone from across the pond correct me if I am wrong....

The fruit of the horse chestnut tree. Conker is an annual event in most schools every autumn. (Though no doubt, people are now trying to say that it's dangerous!) You drill a hole in one, put a string through it and then challenge someone. You take turns to hit your opponent's conker with your own. The winner is the person whose conker survives. It also gets a number - so a conker that has beaten four other conkers is a three-er.

You soon learn that the big shiny good-looking ones tend to get smashed rapidly. It's the little shrivelled hard ones that survive the best.

The site below gives you some information about conkers.
My daughter's previous PR firm used to host the World Conker Championships sponsored by a well-know US icecream firm. She spent a number of Autumn weekends organizing the event. As Martin says it is really a kid's game, but some adults take it very seriously!

Here is a link that might be useful: Conkers

Thanks Martin!

As always, you are a font of info!

I can tell you that this sounds exactly like something my 12 year old grandson would really get into.
I am sending the Conkers link as soon as I post this!

Yvonne

Anyone need a clue for the last book?

CBTD - GDG

The D is old Nick....

After searching around on Amazon, is it:

Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold?

It sounds like a fun read.

Well done! It is actually quite an entertaining book. I had a feeling this wasn't that well known.

More please *g*

NEF - GO
TTE - HEB
WEBT - AM
AHOTWITAAHC - JB
FGTST - EB
SAS - JLC
TSHOHEP - SRC
TDH - JDW
TNT - DLS
STH - EDB

There's a theme here too.

Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

Anyone else? They're not that hard!!