I’ve always loved how someone’s bookshelves are a window into their soul. You learn more about a friend from their favorite books than from anything they’ll tell you in words, because the titles on a shelves tell you the stories that steal their hearts, the worlds they travel into to escape this life, which subjects pique their curiosity.
The way one keeps their books tells you a lot too, doesn’t it? The favorites are well-worn, underlined, given the best shelf in the house. Prize copies, like autographed editions or hardcover classics, are kept in mint condition. Just glance at your own bookshelf; you’ll see that your own life story is written on those shelves.
I like to think of my favorite stories as a bouquet of flowers. Each well-loved book is a dear friend, a lovely blossom in my personal bouquet. So take a walk through my garden with me, and I hope you find a new favorite flower or two to keep you company awhile.
A quick note: since this is an updated edition of last year’s book inventory, I’ve underlined all the new additions at the bottom of each list—for both my own organizational sanity and for your perusal.
CLASSICS
- Les Miserables | Victor Hugo
- Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte
- Middlemarch | George Eliot
- Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte
- War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy
- Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy
- Little Women | Louisa May Alcott
- Mansfield Park | Jane Austen
- Northanger Abbey | Jane Austen
- Love and Friendship | Jane Austen
- Persuasion | Jane Austen
- Emma | Jane Austen
- Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen
- Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen
- Great Expectations | Charles Dickens
- Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens
- A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens
- Hard Times | Charles Dickens
- Bleak House | Charles Dickens (actually have two copies of this novel; one of them is an annotated one I got while studying abroad)
- A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens
- The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | Edited by Tolkien
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
- The Complete Tales | Beatrix Potter
- Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh | A.A. Milne
- The Complete Brambly Hedge } Jill Barklam
- The Anne of Green Gables series | L.M. Montgomery
- The Adventures of Robin Hood | Roger Lancelyn Green
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain
- The Secret Garden | Francis Hodgson Burnett
- Peter Pan | J.M. Barrie
- Black Beauty | Anna Sewell
- The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame
- The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic | Jennifer Trafton
- Misty of Chincoteague | Marguerite Henry
- Stormy, Misty’s Foal | Marguerite Henry
- King of the Wind | Marguerite Henry
- Sea Star | Marguerite Henry
- Justin Morgan Had a Horse | Marguerite Henry
- Brighty of the Grand Canyon | Marguerite Henry
- The White Stallion of Lipizza | Marguerite Henry
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH | Robert O’Brien
- The Bark of the Bog Owl series | Jonathan Rogers
- Black Beauty’s Early Days in the Meadow | Anna Sewell & Jane Monroe Donovan
- Five Children and It | E. Nesbit
NONFICTION FAVORITES
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up | Marie Kondo
- The Book of Hygge | Louisa Thomsen Brits
- A Writer’s Paris | Eric Maisel
- How to Become a Straight-A Student | Cal Newport
- Let’s All Be Brave | Annie F. Downs
- We Stood Upon Stars | Roger Thompson
- Beate Not the Poore Desk | Walter Wangerin, Jr.
- Love Does | Bob Goff
- A Fine Romance | Susan Branch
- The 52 Lists Project | More Seal
- The Norton Anthology to English Literature: Volumes I and II
- Bella Grace Magazine by Stampington & Company
- Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy | Sarah Ban Breathnach
- Book Girl | Sarah Clarkson
- Girl, Wash Your Face | Rachel Hollis
- Girl, Stop Apologizing | Rachel Hollis
- The Untethered Soul | Michael Singer
- Walking on Water | Madeleine L’Engle
FICTION FAVORITES
- All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr
- The Nightingale | Kristin Hannah
- The Book Thief | Markus Zusak
- The Homelander Series | Andrew Klavan
- Crazy Dangerous | Andrew Klavan
- If We Survive | Andrew Klavan
- The Hiding Place | Corrie Ten Boom
- The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | Berry Smith
- How to Be Both | Ali Smith
- All the Bright Places } Jennifer Nivan
- Before I Fall | Lauren Oliver
- Henry V | William Shakespeare (my favorite Shakespeare play!)
- The Girls of Ennismore | Patricia Falvey
- The Clockmaker’s Daughter | Kate Morton (not pictured but it’s definitely on its way)
POETRY
This is my assortment of ancient volumes of poetry and short stories, mostly acquired at library book sales or at small-town antique stores in England.
- The Bees | Carol Ann Duffy
- Collection by Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Collection by Emily Bronte
- 100 Poems | Seamus Heaney
- Beowulf | Translated by Seamus Heaney
- Beowulf | Translated by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Four Quartets | T.S. Eliot
- Three Irish Poets: An Anthology | Edited by Eavan Boland
FANTASY
- The Hobbit | J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Lord of the Rings | J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Chronicles of Narnia | C.S. Lewis
- The Wingfeather Saga | Andrew Peterson
- Harry Potter series | J.K. Rowling
- The extended video collections of LotR, the Hobbit, and Harry Potter.
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell | Susanna Clarke
- Watership Down | Richard Adams
<3 Olivia Grace
