liv | Books of the heart (Reply)

wychwood has a great post about books of the heart, and I'm inspired to copy the idea like what we used to call a meme in the early aughts, becasue book lists are always cool. Defined as: a list of sorts, of books that I read over and over and over when I was young and which felt formational for me in some way - they aren't necessarily my favourites these days, and I certainly wouldn't want to claim that they were the "best" books I ever read, but they're mine in a deep sense.

These are in roughly chronological order of when I got obsessed with them, not order of preference.

The lord of the rings, JRR Tolkien (6 to teens)
Kim, Rudyard Kipling (7-8)
Ballet shoes, Noel Streatfeild (10)
A tale of two cities, Charles Dickens (12)
Homecoming / Dicey's song , Cynthia Voigt (12)
The book of Ebenezer Le Page, GB Edwards (early teens)
Skallagrigg, William Horwood (early teens)
Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, Simone de Beauvoir (late teens)
Babel Tower, AS Byatt (18-ish)
The ground beneath her feet, Salman Rushdie (18-ish)

Looking at this list it does look like I mostly skipped age-appropriate books, there were definitely children's books I liked but the ones that define me were the adult books that fell into my bookworm hands mostly due to confusion over what was actually intended for children. Streatfeild is chapter books or middle grade, Cynthia Voigt is probably actually YA, though a bit early for those age-genres to be fully defined I think. I could also have mentioned Rosemary Sutcliffe though it was all her stuff, not just one book. Or LM Montgomery's Anne books, but that would have added up to more than ten.

I'm writing this while procrastinating, as I'm waiting for an important email and it's hard to concentrate. I think the interesting follow-up might be to make a list of books that have inspired passion since I became an adult. I haven't dived into them as intensely as when I was a child, but there is definitely a last 20 years list as well as a first 20 years list.