My Top Ten Most Memorable Reads

I am assuming that someone cares (even if that someone is my nan, though she too may not care all that much) enough to read through the post. These books are the ones that really stood out to me. Some for good reasons others for not so good reasons.
They order from childhood to now and by now I mean the last time I read a book ( about a month ago). They are in no particular order aside from that because to do that seems like more effort than I am prepared to give this post. I should consider keeping some of my inner thoughts to myself shouldn’t I?

• Most Memorable Read Number One

The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe      C.S Lewis

I really LOVED all of the books in this series and I must say that I even spent many lunchtimes at school in year 5, or was it 6? sitting and reading these books as well as bus trips home (most of the bus trip was actually spent fighting off the motion sickness you suffer from when trying to read in a moving vehicle I must admit.) The whole idea of a fantasy world in the back of your wardrobe made me rather annoyed that my bedroom had built ins.

• Most Memorable Read Number Two

The Famous Five         Enid Blyton

Again, I loved anything Enid Blyton but The Famous Five were by far my most favourite series I had/have ever read. I would spend hours reading these. I loved the name Quentin and did for a very short period of time think that I’d name any future sons Quentin, well ONE future son. I also LOVED George. She was awesome as far as I was concerned. Not only did she do awesome things like have short hair and never wear dresses ( well not without a fight) but she was just as good if not better than the boys, any boys. I thought she rocked! I also wished my Uncle was some kind of scientist who had his own Island. Every book was well and truly devoured by me.

• Most Memorable Read Number Three

The Valley of the Dolls      Jacqueline Susann


My Best Friends mum in primary school had a bookcase with lots of Mills and Boon. I read a lot of them by year 8.  She also had other books. I grabbed a copy of The Valley of the Dolls because of the colourful pills on the cover… this will probably be good I figured. It was an education that is for sure. I didn’t REALLY understand some of it but I got the drift. I think back to me, a 13 year old reading that and I think OK then! I did learn that I would never take any pills because it really was not a good thing. Really.

• Most Memorable Read Number Four

The Iliad     Homer

I used to go to our local Book exchange every week when I was in high school and I usually bought new books occasionally when I had no money I’d exchange some of my own but they were the ‘crap ones’ I’d exchange. I loved my books. The Iliad I borrowed from the Library and I was quite proud of myself. I have always loved mythology of any kind and the ancient Greeks, well ancient ‘Anyones’ were always of interest. I loved the story of Troy and when I realised the Iliad had this story and more I was off to borrow it that week from the library. I took it home and started reading the first page then the next then the next. Then I had to  go back and read the first  three pages again. Then I had to figure out how to pronounce the names, then I had to re read a sentence or paragraph again just to be sure that I was on the uptake of what was actually going on. It was a hard read for me at 14 but I read it and I loved it. I will one day read it again to see if it is actually a ‘hard’ read .

• Most Memorable Read Number Five

Wuthering Heights      Bronte

I loved this book. It was another so called ‘Hard’ read for me as it was written the way Emily Bronte had written it years earlier and well, no one talked like that anymore so it took me a while to figure out what some of the characters were actually saying! But the whole story was just ‘sooooooooooooo romantic’ to my 14 yr old self. I also read and  loved Jayne Eyre around the same time.

• Most Memorable Read Number Six

Seth  Speaks      Jane Roberts 

What a spin out this book was. It was apparently written by some personality/being through some form of 'channeling' of the girl who actually wrote it, if that makes any sense what so ever. I found myself reading this book and stopping every few pages to see if what I thought I had just read was actually what was written. As loopy as it probably sounds on those occasions I did check what I had read was not what was written. It seemed like the book was ‘talking’ to me ( Oh I know how that sounds but I have been assured by others they have experienced similar whilst reading a book so I don’t feel quite as crazy as I may sound right now)  I didn’t like it and so I actually threw it out. I never finished it. (It was the first time I started a book and could not finish it. That only ever happened one other time.) It  freaked me out. This one made it to this list because I had never and will probably never come across a book like that again… thank goodness!!

• Most Memorable Read Number Seven

Tokyo     Mo Hayder
    
This book was a really well written book. It had everything. It was basically about the Japanese invading china ( well it actually was not but part of it was, I could not read the whole book). I was heavily pregnant with Little Miss when I read this book. A few times I had been crying because of a scene ( are they called scenes when written in a book?) but the ‘scene’ that made me unable to read any more or stop blubbering uncontrollably was a description (far too descriptive for my sensibilities it turned out) of a Japanese soldier brutally stabbing at a man and cutting the kidney of a baby out and other horrifying things. I closed the book with tears streaming down my face and gave it to a friend of ours who had by that time become my main source of books other than those I had bought. He along with his mother had many, many books for me to read.

• Most Memorable Read Number Eight

A Child Called It      Dave Pelzer

This book broke my heart over and over again. Though I did finish it I spent most of the time I was reading it ( a full day) crying and saying ‘Oh my god how could a mother be so cruel!?’. Again, I was pregnant with Miss Independent and when pregnant I do suddenly develop the ability to cry at/over/ because of just about anything but I defy anyone to read that book and not feel unbelievably devastated at the treatment this man suffered as a boy at his mothers crazy hand. Were it not because I knew he had grown up ‘OK’ I am not sure I could have read this one all the way through to be honest.

• Most Memorable Read Number Nine

T
he Davinci Code          Dan Brown


I had heard of it well before I read it. I was given a copy by a friend and I started reading it at 8pm that night. The kids were all in bed and My Beloved was working away so I sat in my arm chair reading until 7.30 the next morning!! I could not put it down. By the first chapter I was well and truly hooked and some time around 2am that morning I realised the time and considered going to bed and the consequences of not having had any sleep that night and dealing with three kids the next day… I chose to read on and I was not disappointed. This made it to the list for two reasons I can normally not justify not having any sleep at all before spending the day looking after children ( which around here is every day!!) and also because I can normally put a book down when my eye balls are falling from their sockets but not this time. I don’t think it was because of all the hype surrounding the book at the time, but who knows!

• Most Memorable Read Number Ten

Nineteen Minuets       Jodie Picoult

This book I found in the bargin bin ( I have no idea why it was in the bargin bin) at the local store in Geraldton about 6 years ago. I loved every second of reading this book and I loved Jodie Picoult because of it. She seems to have an understanding of people and can even have you feeling great empathy for a murder. I found a new ‘fave’ author through reading this book.


These are not necessarily  my top ten reads but definitely  my most memorable for some reason or the other. Books are great like that. They can mean so many things to so many people.

What is your Most Memorable Read and why? I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments or on my Facebook Page