My Nine Books

…or more like my 27 books, multiplied 🤣

I’m a bit late to the party, but finally got to try to do my nine books. Rather obviously one set of 9 was not enough 😝 So I made three sets – and even that only scratches some surface of the thousands of books I’ve read, even though not all of them “stay with me”. In many cases I could’ve picked multiple titles by the same author, but I stuck to picking one per author only.

I’ll treat you to all of them, books in sets:

Set 1: books from my early life (childhood > teens)

Home for a Bunny (Golden Book) – so beloved!
Seacrow Island, by Astrid Lindgren – the book that made me love reading (instead of listening only), and I could’ve listed several more of Lindgren novels here
Watership Down, by Richard Adams – oh, cry and laugh!
The Tripods trilogy, by John Christopher – my debut to SciFi and fantasy
The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough – my coming of age book, but also there’s Tim, An Indecent Obsession, The Ladies of Missalonghi and so many more!
Exodus, by Leon Uris – another teen obsession, but also there was Mila 18, Trinity, Redemption (later on), The Haj…
The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas – and The Count of Monte Christo and many more!
Unknown Soldiers (Tuntematon sotilas), by Väinö Linna – a high school read I surprisingly actually read and it stuck
Pride and Prejudice – this actually came later in my life, I think, but still my Austen debut and first love (though my favorite Austen is actually The Northanger Abbey)

Set 2: books from the recent years (and earlier ones from authors I keep on reading)

One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich – got introduced to Evanovich when pregnant with my younger kid (who’s now 23yo) and I’ve read every single book she’d written
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune – my first Klune, made me fall in love with Klune, and could list here a couple dozen other Klune books
The House Witch, by Delemhach – this and the rest of the trilogy and the other related trilogies…
The Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow – my favorite Harrow, there’s something special about this story
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman – while maybe not my favorite Gaiman (that might be The Ocean at the End of the Lane), but somehow the most profound one for me
The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern – my son recommended this to me and my god I loved this book!
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, by V.E. Schwabb – stumbled upon this accidentally and it just was one of those books, you know
The Bone Door, by Frances White – a book from this year, I was a bit sceptical somehow, but then I read it and wow! Likely the best book of the year, one that stays with me forever
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett – There’s something about this series, the ambiance, the characters, everything…

Set 3: mix and match of books that didn’t make it to the other sets

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott – I was debating between this and Anne of Green Gables since I could not fit both here 😀 but chose this one because it was the inspiration of my first (never finished) novel attempt
Song of the Highlands, by Sharon Gillenwater – a teen read, representing every book about Ireland I read as a teen (it was more than just this and Uris’ Trinity & Redemption)
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco – we watched the movie in high school and I loved it and then read the book and it is one of the major influences of my teen years
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell – at a point, I was obsessed, and could add here also Alenxandra Ripely’s Scarlett and Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank – while a definite corner stone of my life in itself, also represents here all of the other books I once devoured about the Jews & the Holocaust of WW2
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams – what can I say, it holds the secret of life, the universe and everything inside
The 1Q84 trilogy, by Haruki Murakami – my favorite Murakami (or second favorite if maybe Sputnik Sweetheart holds that place?) and well, it’s simply excellent
The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods – while one of my favorite books ever in itself, also representing an entire (sub)genre of beloved newer books for me: everything else by Woods, Meg Shaffer, and Heather Webber, and some other such ones too
The City of Dreaming Books, by Walter Moers – last but not least, Moers’ Zamonia books, but especially these Bookholm books, hold a firm place in this list. I just wish more of these would be translated as my German is NOT good enough…