1 2 3 4 5
Stories read to me, stories recited to me, stories I’m too young to remember properly
6
Winnie the Pooh
A.A Milne
Audio cassettes on the drive to school
Turn to side B
7
Rebecca’s World
Terry Nation
Written by the man who invented Daleks
I wish more people could read this book
8
The Wombles
Elizabeth Beresford
Underground, overground
9
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
J.K Rowling
Time travel and plot twists
A perfect introduction to Harry Potter
10
The Diamond Girls
Jacqueline Wilson
A signed birthday present
and a photograph meeting my favourite author
11
The Bad Beginning
Lemony Snicket
Unfortunate,
but only for the Baudelaires
12
Gossip Girl
Cecily von Ziegesar
Definitely too young for them
But I read the entire series
13
Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer
Define the nerdier accomplishment:
Decoding the secret message
or learning to read the gnommish hieroglyphs
14
Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
Because I’d be lying otherwise
15
Skulduggery Pleasant
Derek Landy
An unfinished series
Who thought neon orange sprayed edges was a good idea?
16
Clockwork Angel
Cassandra Clare
Boys in books are better
(maybe this only applies to teenage boys)
17
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
I’ll have you know
I was already a fan of dystopia
18
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
Beautifully written
Narrated by Death
19
The Magic Toyshop
Angela Carter
Giving birth and creating oneself;
the height of literary conceit,
confirming my disillusion with literary theory
20
Solaris
Stanislaw Lem
Occasionally they let you study Sci-Fi
21
The Minpins
Roald Dahl
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it
22
The Good Immigrant
Nikesh Shukla
‘Namaste…has become a bastardised metaphor for spiritualism’
23
1984
George Orwell
‘War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.’
The parallels are actually terrifying.
24
Six of Crows
Leigh Bardugo
That feeling, that absolutely wonderful feeling
Of falling back in love with reading
25
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling
You know, history repeats itself.
And, rereading is magical.
It was my birthday last weekend and I thought it would be fun to revisit and update an old birthday blog post. Not my usual wordy stuff but something a bit more lyrical and dare I say poetic?
These are the books that have stood out, if not defined different ages of my life and it was a lot of fun to do! The Twilight/vampire phase was a significant one that I remember – I ate up any teen vampire book, especially ones with romantic plotlines.
What are some of the books that have stood out and reflected on different ages in your life?
arubunwritten.wordpress.com 
Happy belated birthday, Arub!!! ❤ This is such a neat idea. Your age 11 and 13 books match up perfectly with mine. I was OBSESSED with Artemis Fowl (and also kind of crushing on him) in middle school.
Hmm, some of my other "defining" books during teenage years:
13 – His Dark Materials (tied with Artemis Fowl :P)
14 – The Book Thief
15 – On the Jellicoe Road
16 – The Hunger Games
LikeLike
Thank you! Oh my gosh, Artemis Fowl was excellent – I devoured basically anything by Eoin Colfer at that age.
Thanks for sharing your defining books! Totally see how your reading taste has evolved from this.
LikeLiked by 1 person