Top Ten Tuesday - Books I Loved but Didn't Review

It's been ages since I've done a Top Ten Tuesday, and since I'm not in work till later today, I thought I'd put my time to good use! Here are my top ten books I read and didn't review - most are pre-blogging but not all!

1.       To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – I first read this when I was around 11 and fell in love with it. I re-read it about eight times before I had to study it for GCSE when I was 15, and then didn’t read it for years because my copy was impossibly annotated and highlighted. Last year I finally got myself a new copy and fell in love all over again.

2.       Harry Potter by J.K Rowling – I have talked about these books on the blog, as they’re such a part of my life now. When the first one came out, I was still young enough (just) for bedtime stories, and my mum used to read them to us. Now they’re my lifeline and the books I turn to whenever times are stressful. I’ve been waiting for my Hogwarts letter since I was 11...

3.       Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger – I first read this age 14, and literally ran around telling everyone who would listen that Holden and I were exactly the same. Aaah to be a teenager... I then passed it on to my younger sisters, who all loved it!

4.       The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – I read this book in college, and didn’t even have to check it out.

5.       Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen – a recent discovery, I just never quite got around to reviewing it, but I am now firmly in loved with Addison Allen’s books. The mixture of food, magic, and romance is just irresistible to me.

6.       Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas – and anything by Scarlett Thomas at all, really. I picked up The End of Mr Y at Borders (when it was still around in the UK!), on a whim, and haven’t looked back. Our tragic universe is probably my favourite purely by virtue of being the least scienc-ey of her recent novels. Also, it has knitting in it, and at the time I read it I was just getting into knitting.

7.       Ravenheart by David Gemmell – this is the book that gave my siblings and I something to talk about, back in the distant past, where we really really hated each other... I have Gemmell to thank for the fact that at least two of my very dyslexic siblings read at all, and his characters are just so immense. This is the book that breaks my heart a little bit every time I read it, but I can’t help coming back for more!

8.       The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – the first book recommended to me by my dad when I was about 10. This is a big deal, as my dad doesn’t really read fiction, and this book made me laugh out loud from the first page to the last. Still a favourite today and one I recommend to everyone. I found out the other day my fiancé hasn’t read it, so he’s reading it now, in time for the wedding....

9.       The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien – Another dad recommendation. He tried to read us Lord of the Rings as a bedtime story after The Hobbit was fairly successful (I say fairly – I enjoyed it, but thought it was about a worm.. In my defence, I was four). The bedtime project never quite took off but when I was around 11 I read them for myself and now they are a firm favourite.

10.   Wild Swans by Jung Chang – after saying my dad doesn’t read, this was another one he recommended. I’m really interested in Chinese history, and he’d just finished this and passed it onto me when I was about 14. I love the way that it spans three generations and brings them together. Just beautiful.