1. Harry Potter series
Seriously. I know they're everyone's favorite books...but its because they're AWESOME. I could probably spend like 3 days just talking about all the ways these books are wonderful and all the reasons I love them. If you haven't read them...you're stupid. If you have, then you understand.
2. Anne of Green Gables series
Such gorgeous books. Anne was my first book love, and she continues her reign at the top. I love her so much. I read these books over and over again and love them just as much every single time. Also, don't tell Fiona, but Anne could kick Cassandra's (from I Capture the Castle) boo-tay.
3. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
A beautiful love story with a fast-paced and interesting historical fiction plot. I think this book has something for everyone, and it is one of my favorite books to push on unsuspecting victims. Of course the series is still continuing and is now ridiculously long...who cares. This one stands alone pretty well, you don't have to commit yourself to all 5 years of Outlander series reading time at once.
4. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
I list this in my top 5 because A) I need a classic in here so I don't look like a dummy B) I like it better than Pride and Prejudice and I love telling people about how Mr. Thornton could take Mr. Darcy in a sexy hero competition any day (bring it on!) and C) it just really is darn good.
5. A 3-way fantasy tie between The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first 3 books in the Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey and the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
They are all fantastic, brilliant, and epic. They're all monumentally different from each other. I have a gargantuan author crush on Patrick Rothfuss (ask anyone), the Kushiel trilogy is radically different then anything else I've ever read, and Brandon Sanderson has already pretty much set himself up as an all time great epic fantasy author.
I have read so much good stuff in the past year though...I always want to add them to the list. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Soulless by Gail Carriger, and Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost all get Honorable Mentions.
Top 5 Books of All Time
1. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith - I love this book even though I don't usually go for such overtly girly books. The novel was published in 1948 and was written whilst Smith was feeling homesick for England as she and her husband had moved to the USA during the 1940's. Perhaps this is why there is something very nostalgic about I Capture the Castle - telling the story of a young woman during the early thirties, who lived with her family in a broken down old castle as they struggle to get by in growing poverty and isolation. It tells of a time before the war and the ugliness so it must have been a lovely book for those young people to have read.
Mainly, what I loved about this book are the characters. It is so much a story about the people who inhabit the pages. It is not a fast paced book, I think it is rather a book that you come to love in and alongside. Cassandra's voice came alive in my head as she wrote. The opening line is: "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." And from this moment you are there with Cassandra - sitting in that kitchen sink - or making a few quick observations and then coming back later to write them up. There is a sense of time and movement in her journal - of belonging and intimacy.
I Capture the Castle makes me feel happy, it makes me feel alive and I it makes you think about these characters and it makes you feel.
2. Shogun - James Clavell - This is a surprising book. It's hard to imagine me even reading a book like this. At first glance you might think this is just some blokey book about Japanese samurai, ninjas and war but this couldn't be further from the truth.
Kandice recommended this book to me - and I got it into my head to give it a go. My copy of the book was a good 1125 pages, but it is the shortest long book I have ever read. Clavell is a master storyteller - at every twist there is a turn and if you think you're going in one direction you'll be taken down another. You find yourself on a massive Japanese rollercoaster and unable to stop.
Shogun follows the story of Blackthorne, an English pilot during the 1600's who is ship wrecked along with his Dutch crew upon the shoreline of Japan. Blackthorne has to learn how to survive in a culture so vastly different from his own.
It is unexpectedly funny - in fact outright hilarious as I found myself laughing so loud people had to tell me to shut up! Just wait until you get to the duck scene, I shall say no more but boy did that have me laughing up a storm.
The characters of Blackthorne and Mariko are two of the most memorable characters I have ever read and will stay with me for a long time. Reading Shogun is much more of an experience then just a good book.
3. Dogsbody and Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - Oh okay okay I know, that is two books but I really cannot choose. Dogsbody is the first book I truly fell in love with at the age of nine and my love for it has not changed sixteen years later. Howl's Moving Castle is also one of the books that I love and who cannot love Howl (even though you know you should not)?
Dogsbody is about the Dogstar, Sirius who is punished for losing his temper, by being sent down to earth to retrieve something he lost. He wakes up on earth in the form of a puppy - and is later adopted by Kathleen, a lonely young girl living with her uncle's family. The story is actually surprisingly deep and reading it again after so many years I observed a lot I had missed as a young child. Jones has a skill for writing invisible threads of complexity, into a deceivingly simple sounding story.
Howl's Moving Castle is about Sophie, a young hat maker who is cursed by a wicked witch and anything more would really be a spoiler. I have read it many times and every time it makes me laugh and fall in love with the characters over and over again. It is hard to describe books by Diana Wynne Jones. They never sound fantastic on the outside, but inside they are exceptional. She is by far the best writer of YA/Children's fantasy there ever is. And I mean better then JK Rowling. Which brings me to...
4. The Harry Potter Series - These have been with me for near on ten years ever since I first read them at the tender age of 13/14. There is a lot of criticism of the Harry Potter books - such as the idea of a wizarding school not actually being unique. You don't have to be Einstein to arrive at that conclusion. Anyone read The Worst Witch? And there will be countless other stories about young, orphaned boy wizards who end up in a school for wizards. It is not an original idea. What makes Harry Potter, Harry Potter and not some other book like Willy the Wizard or whatever other half-baked load of crap there is out there?
Rowling meticulously planned each of these seven books so that when you read book six and look back to book three for example, you suddenly see a connection you may not have had before. She developed a world which people believed in, one that lives on in each of our imaginations, and characters whom we all felt we knew.
Harry Potter makes up a whole era of many people's lives - millions of people young and old waiting for the next installment and rushing out to buy it, queuing up for hours at midnight openings.
When Harry Potter ended - some part of my childhood ended with it. It was hard to believe I'd never again feel excited for the next one - never be left wondering whether Snape was a goodie or a badie (I always knew the truth!) I don't think there will be another book or series that will captivate me like that ever again. But maybe it was because I was a child at the time I started the series? Maybe now that I am no longer a child I can no longer give myself to a book so effortlessly and freely?
5. The Stand by Stephen King - Picking the 5th one is the hardest. So many could go in this spot. The Otori Series by Lian Hearn, The Roth trilogy by Andrew Taylor... Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, The Loop by Nicholas Evans. These could all be in my top five of all time. I have chosen The Stand though because it filled me up just like the other four filled me up. Maybe it isn't the BEST written book I have read, perhaps there are BETTER books in my read list, but The Stand wrapped me up and took me away and I guess that's what it takes to get on my top five. Not quality but how much I enjoyed it.
The Stand was my first book by Stephen King. I bought it totally on whim. (Partly because of Gary Sinise, partly because it had crossed my mind that I rarely read any American fiction). I never expected to even like it so I was pretty surprised by myself when I ended up loving it.
For one these kinds of dystopian, end of the world novels have never attracted me. The idea of 99 odd per cent of the population being wiped off the face of the earth did not fill me with excitement. Stephen King had never even been on my radar. I don't like horror but I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm an idiot and shouldn't be trusted to pick my own books.
I'm not sure what I liked about it. I think it is, that King is able to write about something that is so far out there but make you believe it. He does like to go on an on and on with characterisations (I think he overdid it in IT) and is quite wordy and descriptive - but it works. He has such a strong voice you want to listen to him. I wanted to know about these characters - Stu, Fran, Nick, Tom, Larry, Nadine. My favourite was of course Stu.
The only thing I did not like, which is perhaps why this book should not be in my top five, is that I think the ending was rather weak - in fact let's just call it lame. But despite this, I still loved it which brings it back into a rightful position within my top five all time books.
And so that folks - is my Top Five of All Time list. Later I will come back with my other High Fives, so keep an eye out (or just close them, whichever.)
1. Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.
Brilliant, take a shuffle in Iris' slippers for a day. Fantastic, cutting commentary on aspects modern life as well as a beautiful sweeping historical memoir with puzzles and riddles that keep you guessing right up to the last chapters, even when you're pretty sure you've got everything all sewn up. Very clever stories within stories. You will be missed Iris.
2. The Hours by Michael Cunningham.
A stunningly beautifully written book, touching and clever. It was such a joy to read, one of those that you turn each page lovingly, stroking the pages, treasuring it.
3. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
I adored this book from the start, the language is so lush, rich and intoxicating..it almost didn't matter where the story was going it was so dripping with beautiful wordplay. And like someone else said about the 'spiraling' time line, kept you working your way towards the plot unraveling - a bit forward, a bit back, pieces at a time. A joyful experience, I haven't smiled so much with a read for a long time. As others have said its funny its not an uplifting storyline, but its an almost incidental fact when the imagery and playfulness is like this.
4. Shogun by James Clavell.
Bloody brilliant - re read after a 20 year gap after GR peer group pressure and upgraded from 3 to 5 stars. Pleased to find memory of goldfish so remembered almost nothing from previous read and that had seriously done an injustice with previous rating,
The writing isn't always first class but at the same time Clavell perfectly en-captures the delicacies of the Samurai code of honour and Japanese life at that time. Its gruesome and bloody and coarse but the plots and counter plots and intrigues keep you on the edge of your reading chair the whole way through. And you change with Anjin-san as you get to know the Japanese better and your standpoint on who are the more barbaric changes the more you read on. Mariko-San became one of my favourite literary heroines. Im not usually one for war novels but there was so much more to this and i loved never knowing whos side anyone was on and wondering what the next carrier pigeon would bring. The mind boggles at how many seppukus and decapitations and gruesome deaths happened throughout the book but you have to admire the sense of honour and duty and commitment to their cause that these characters had.
There's even some philosophy in there..i found myself trying to imagine rocks growing while trying to struggle through Christmas shopping hoards of people without hitting someone!
You even get to pick up some Japanese on the way!
Top marks!
5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. 
Bloody Brick-Tastic! Possibly the best book I've ever read, certainly the longest. 1243 pages of action, revenge, retribution, planning, plotting, secrets, affairs, Parisian glamour and romance. The pace barely lets up, its pretty much a page turner all the way through, and the second half has plenty of OMG moments. I never would have attempted something so daunting seeming if it wasn't recommended by GR friends, i seriously thought it would have to be one of the stuffiest old books going. Wrong, wrong wrong!... read it!
