#1 – Inkheart (Inkworld trilogy) by Cornelia Funke

I feel like, since this is my number 1 I have to justify its position most of all, like I have to merely present you with a list of reasons why its amazing and why everybody should read it, but in truth I cannot. I cannot say, in the case of this book most of all, exactly why I love them so much, why they mean so much to me. I’ve created my own world within the Inkworld, a world where I can live and be happy, where so many of the petty stresses of today that dominate my life in such a crushing manner can be completely dwarfed by bigger issues. But it’s okay, because those bigger issues are things I know how to understand, how to fight because I’ve learnt from these books, and so many others. It’s all I’ve ever known , all I have the capacity to completely understand, because I’ve heard about it so much throughout my life. They saw we are told these stories so we can learn from them and apply those lessons to real life but how can we? No one knows who the villains are anymore – too often they look so very much like the heroes. I know I can never have what I desire most from this world, but this book keeps me believing that maybe there is a way out, if not always in the way you expect.

#2 – The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

I think it must have been around World Book Night 2013 when I started hearing a lot more about this book – from a teacher who’d got involved, and a Youtuber who was leaving all the copies she received on the London Underground for bored strangers to pick up, and eventually I found a very pretty-looking copy at the very bottom of a corner bookshelf in a local shop. I’ll admit it took me a while to finish, I didn’t really get into it until I was about halfway through (incidentally, near where the pictures started). I don’t know what it is about illustrated books, but they just seem to come to life in such a much brighter, more vivid way; its almost as if you’re being given evidence of these events, so that have to have happened. I never get tired of people who portray death as so much more than a state, the fate that awaits us all, it gives me such comfort to picture him as conscious, as sentient, and ever so slightly human. I suppose I forces me to believe that his touch can’t be completely frozen, unmoved by our hopeless endeavours to seek happiness and love, that he might even look upon us with tenderness for it – he isn’t incapable of warmth. For me it brings into reality something I’ll always love to see, which is a glimpse at the lives that went on, having been touched by the war, by the chaos, but still not completely dominated by it, because that’s what my life is, I think: I sit on the outskirts of the storm, almost unscathed but I see it all, every last bit, only the ones in it’s midst cannot see me, and so I am forgotten.

#3 – The Blood Stone by Jamila Gavin

It’s it astounding how so many memories and emotions can get trapped between the pages of a book merely by reading it at the right time? This is another one of those. I ended up reading it whilst I was getting my bedroom re-done, so I was sleeping on the sofa-bed in the dinning room. It all sounds rather unconventional, but it was one of the nicest bedrooms I’ve ever had. I’m not quite sure why, considering it was early Spring so still very cold, though I did have a double bed…maybe it was this book? It’s just a huge cooking pot of everything I love in a story – trekking across deserts, travelling to far off lands, spies, scimitars, and Venice. Venice, man….it’s a dream come true. Just flicking through it now makes me yearn to read it again, and books that do that to me are the best kind, the kind you never want to be remember in anything less than pure clarity. And it was just so different, so ridiculously unforeseen, and its just got one of those endings, man…those infuriating endings…

#4 – The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Okay, now we’re really getting into the good stuff. Last Winter I managed to work myself up into a whirl-wind of Tolkien, with the discovery of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies, followed by my ploughing through an absolutely beautiful edition of the Hobbit (complete with illustrations by Alan Lee, whom I admire greatly), then a whole host of Tolkien-related Christmas presents, which finally concluded in 3 long but magical months spent reading the Lord of the Rings books. And it’s not just the book itself that makes me love it so much, its the feelings and textures and tastes and experiences I associate with it – I have so many wonderful memories of red glowing fairy-lights and badly-made hot chocolate and just a general sense of achievement for having completed a task that had initially seemed so daunting. But it was amazing. I have a total fairy-tale complex and this book it just such a perfect example of some of the best things you can find in a story – that, coupled with the fact that Tolkien’s narrative can make him sound like a sarcastic little shit at times, makes this book undoubtedly one of the best I have ever read. Everything about it makes me happy.

#5 – The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I first heard about this book in an old film I hold very dear to my heart – Eloise at the Plaza, a story about a remarkable little girl living in one of the most prestigious hotels in New York, whilst running circle around everyone who tries to get any sort of hold on her – where it functions as a surprisingly important plot device. I also hold in very high regard books that at least make the effort to try and make themselves look pretty, so a quaint little book for of the most colourful illustrations was a dream come true. I actually read it whilst I was travelling the African desert on holiday (only people who’ve read the book will get THAT reference;)) and finished it within a day, but I hope I don’t go forgetting it anytime soon – its a book I want to stay with me forever, especially as I begin to come to grips with the realities of being a grown up, I wish to always remember what it taught me (then again it wouldn’t be that much of a chore to read it again). After all, as it says, it really is a story for all ages personally I hope to still be reading when I’m sitting in a rocking chair with one of many grandchildren on my knee…yes, that would be rather nice)

#6 – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Definitely one of my all-time favourites, as I’ve heard the stories of Alice and her friends all my life, whether from being read them as bedtime stories, or faint memories of old films that seem to merge both these stories into one. But, make no mistake, they are separate stories. Alice in Wonderland, as it is more commonly known, is the one I’d heard so much off, only all broken up into a jumble of furry ears and floating eyes and a maze of playing cards. Through the Looking-Glass, however, I knew very little of, just the strangest memories of what looks like an old film made many years ago, and scraps from Disney’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, which is really just a horrendous  mish-mash of the two books. I think the fact that i knew so little about it made me enjoy it a hell of a lot more – like re-discovering a fantasy world I’d only visited once before in a long-forgotten dream, full of white knights and talking flowers and giant chess boards and lions and walruses and unicorns some things altogether too bizarre to describe. But it’s a pearl, make no mistake.

#7 – I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend by Cora Harrison

It feels a rather childish addition to the list, but I have an undeniable adoration for historical fiction. Okay, so this isn’t exactly classic historical fiction, but, at times when work plagues my mind 90% of the day, reading is a welcome relief. That is, if it is relieving. I find, at times like those, reading classics (with their over-complicated language and 4-page setting descriptions) just becomes a chore, and often classics are the only sufficiently written historical fictions out there. This one was a breath of fresh air for me. After having spent a good month trying to read Mansfield park, finding this book was a blessing. The writing is simple enough to enjoy, but the gems lie in the story. Just reading about a period I am in love with, as the basis for a tale of love, mystery and intrigue was enough to make me fall head-over-heals for this beautiful little book.

#8 – Divergent (Divergent Trilogy) by Veronica Roth

Only number 8? I know, but in all honesty, it might not have even made it onto the list if I wasn’t in love with the way Roth writes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love a good post-apocalyptic teen fiction, but, whilst the general baseline for Divergent (what with the factions and the refreshing lack of a love triangle) is wholly original, the layout of the trilogy and being cut off from the outside world and it all just makes me wonder if that’s the only way to write post-apocalyptic fiction, because that seems to be the only way anyone is able to write it. Maybe I’ll be luckier in the future, in finding something a little more different. Nevertheless, Divergent is still here, and that’s because the way Roth writes is always exactly what I want it to be. Almost every line, every movement is exactly what i want it to be, but not in a bad way, in a I-really-want-this-thing-to-happen-cuz-it-would-be-so-cool-but-I-bet-it-won’t-happen-but-then-it-does kind of way. It’s fantastic.

#9 – Withering Tights (The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey) by Louise Rennison

After reading the first few books in Rennison’s The Confessions of Georgia Nicholson series, I was a lot more than pleased when I found this rather colourful little book in a local bookshop. And I can say with conviction I much prefer it to the first series she wrote, and, I don’t know why, but I seem to be able to identify with Tallulah than I could with Georgia. Perhaps it’s the low self-esteem, or the over-powering desire to study performing arts, or just the helpless obsession with delinquent boarding school boys, perhaps I’ll never know. But it’s hilarious and empowering and left me wanting much, much more.

#10 – The Recruit (Cherub) by Robert Muchamore

A secret intelligence organisation that only trains kid – what 10-year-old could resist? I was introduced to this series by an old friend when I was only in primary school; read the first one, but most likely got distracted by one of my sister’s old chick-lits and never even got halfway through the second. But I read it again just a few months ago and fell in love again – I may yet finish this series, and, I’ll admit, I’m even more intrigued in the spin-off series Muchamore is writing that tells the story of the origins of ‘Cherub’ (Henderson Boys). I appears the idea of being a child spy still appeals to me (after all, I’m still young enough to be recruited, aren’t I?), and I don’t think it ever won’t.