Beloved Favourites List

I hate it when people ask me what my favourite book is. Not only does the question make my mind go blank, but I don't have a favourite book - I'm not sure that any voracious reader does. I do have a list of favourite books, though - the most beloved, heart touching ones. Not necessarily life-changing, or written brilliantly, but you remember vividly when you first read them. You have them on your book shelves, usually battered rather than pristine, re-read them often, find comfort in them and love it when they get shoved to the back for months and you can rediscover them some time later. Childhood favourites, adult epiphanies. You recommend them to friends, buy copies as birthday presents, and hope that they will like the book as much as you did, because it will mean they understand part of you.

You know those books? Well, at the moment (and it will definitely be added to), this is my list.

Fiction

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

Lords and Ladies, The Wee Free Men and The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
What Katy Did and What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge

April Fool's Day by Bryce Courtenay

The Lives of Christopher Chant, Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones

Singer from the Sea and The Family Tree by Sheri S Tepper

Onion Girl by Charles De Lint

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R King

The Diddakoi and The River by Rumer Godden
The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody

Non Fiction

Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love by Stephanie Dowrick
Paula by Isabelle Allende

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

At the Root of This Longing by Carol Flinders