Top Ten Tuesday (#1) - Top Ten Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish, where the writers, like me, are particularly fond of lists.

This week's topic is... Top Ten Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger. I can guarantee that after this list is published I will think of ten other favourite books I should have mentioned (and then ten more and then ten more), but such is the life of the reading obsessed.

So, in no particular order, here are ten of my favourite books spanning different periods in my life, but all from before I started blogging...

1. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
I read this over and over when I was younger, and my copy is pretty well worn. I sort of grew up with Anne, every time I read it I was a little bit older, and could therefore relate a little bit more to the feelings she was going through as she got older.

2. The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Another one I read a lot when I was younger. I sort of share a name with the protagonist, and I loved that she was in some ways a very modern 21st century female, despite the time this book is set in and the time it was written in - Sara is strong, hard working, she's independent, she's fierce.

3. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A second one by the same author (and one I read lots and lots and lots as a child, check out the spine of my copy in the picture below!). Even though it took me ages to learn how to read the Yorkshire dialect, I still loved this book almost immediately. I'm not very green fingered, but if I could, I would create a secret garden like the one Mary, Dickon and Colin create.

4. The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
I'll count these all as one. Although some of the later books in the series could have done with a bit of editing, Rowling created a fantastic world with this series, one with very few holes in it and one that I can immerse myself in completely whenever I open the novels.

5. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
I like to describe Stardust as a fairytale for adults whenever I tell people about it. Gaiman is a wonderful writer, effortlessly combining all sorts of worlds - from Victoriana to the supernatural to modern England - to create his own world. (By the way, whoever has my copy of this really needs to give it back.)

6. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
This book had me gripped from beginning to end. Although I had my suspicions about where it was going, Shriver writes so well that it was only pages before the big reveal that I guessed exactly what was about to occur, and even then I read the coming scenes in a mix of astonishment and horror and dismay. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a thought-provoking novel, and I still find myself thinking over the issues it raises every now and then.

7. Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris
My introduction to Harris started with Chocolat (after I watched the film) and has most recently encompassed blueeyedboy, but my absolute favourite book of hers is Gentlemen & Players, the ending of which took me completely by surprise.

8. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
This book was not what I was expecting at all, but it's haunting and beautiful and utterly magnificent.

9. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I read Tartt's The Little Friend first, and didn't get on too well with it. Luckily, I perservered and started The Secret History, which I found dark and fascinating, and worthy of being called a modern classic.

10. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
It was a toss up between this, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as to the literary classic that should go on my list, but Wuthering Heights won out because it's full of romance and suspense and tragedy, and I wish it would end differently each time I finish it, even though I know it won't.

So that's my ten (I can only find eight to picture, and didn't want to put all the Harry Potters in), what's in yours?