the BEST 25 books I've ever read!

Putting this as a definitive list makes me feel incredibly nervous but I feel like it's time. Hello friends. So the other day I realised I have never done a my favourite books video ever. I've never done it in the history of my channel. I've only ever done like best books of the year but I thought it was time I give you a definitive list of my top 25 books ever. It's about time! Putting this together was actually easier than I thought. I feel pretty confident in my picks. Of course with anything like this there'll be a comment. It's like why don't you put this book in there? Why don't you put this book in there? And I'll be like oh ---- right. But at the moment I feel confident in my choices and the way that we're gonna do this is I haven't ranked them from like 25 to 1 because that would be too difficult. But what I have done is we've got three kind of tiers. We've got 25 to 16, 15 to 6 and then the top 5. So I've been able to rank it like that. I have got my top 5 books of all time and like the tiers kind of separating them. Should we just get into it? I don't really know what to do. This is I just guess a video of my top recommendations. Some of these will be books I haven't spoken about in a long time because they're books I read a long time ago. There might be books you don't even know that I've read or loved and some will be more recent editions. So shall we just get into it? I feel like, I don't know if you can tell, I feel nervous. Let's just begin. So we'll start at the bottom of Workaway up. So this is the 25 to 16 number book. So it's not ranked within this um but yeah this is the first tier. So first book I want to mention is The Tea Dragon Society by Kate O'Neill. I still haven't read the next two in this series because it's so precious and incredible. I want to like keep it for the perfect day but basically you're following these like tea dragons who like help brew tea. There's the different types and it's just the most gorgeous graphic novel you've ever seen. Like literally a hug in a book. I need to reread this. Maybe I'll just like reread this like right now. Found family, fantastical little magical creatures and I love it. I can't wait to read this with my kids one day. I genuinely think that like I think about when I'm reading it like oh my god imagine a little kid looking at a little tea dragon. It's very strange. Yeah it's just so wholesome, so beautiful and you've got kind of this friendship between these two characters as well. So yeah I had to put this on here. I find that I prefer cute graphic novels. I like graphic novels that are cute, wholesome, happy and so if you ever have any recommendations for that let a gal know. Oh my gosh no I've bent this book. Oh ----. Well then we have the only non-fiction book on this list. It was tough. I almost put another one on here. I almost put The Five by Halle Rubenhold but it didn't quite make it. But this is the only non-fiction. It's one I read a super long time ago and it is Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. So this is a series of essays from Roxane Gay. It's set into sections. We've got me, gender and sexuality, race and entertainment, politics, gender and race and back to me. And I just thought this was so insightful, so interesting. It's such a great look at intersectional feminism but you know the difficulties of sometimes being a feminist whilst also having these ingrained societal perceptions. I never highlight but I highlighted a lot in this book and this is actually one I would really love to reread. I just thought it was so interesting. I felt like when I was reading it I opened my eyes and I always say my favourite essay in this is the one where she talks about her love for Scrabble. I love it. Like I love the essay about Scrabble in this. I found it so interesting. Then we have a new edition. This is The Broken Girls by Simone St. James. This is just a pretty simple kind of mystery. We have these two timelines. One in the present day, a woman whose sister was murdered about 20 years ago I think and found on the grounds of this old school. Then we also follow perspectives of these girls who went to the school when it was happening. And in the present day timeline again a body has just been found on the school grounds again. And I just loved this. I loved the relationships between some of the girls in this. I found the way that the mystery unfurled was so interesting. I thought the writing was incredible. It really made me fall in love with Simone St. James's writing and I've been wanting to try more from her ever since. And I always say there's like a little bit of speculativeness. Is the camera not focused again? What is going on with you? What has happened? It's like having a job working 24-7 for two days on the trot. Yeah there's always a little bit of speculativeness to these books. There's always a little bit of like something lurking and I just loved that. I wasn't expecting that because so often a book promises me spooky vibes, ghosty vibes and yet then at the end it's like oh it was nothing. Oh you know. Whereas this there's still a little bit of throughout the book you know a little bit but it's not overpowering. It's not really what the book's about but I love that. I love a bit of supernatural speculativeness outside our wildness so yes cannot wait to read more Simone St. James. Another one from last year was Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee. This is the last in the Green Mound saga. We're following this family who are like uh it's kind of like a mafia fantasy and this family are one of the most powerful families in the city and this book don't even look at me. Don't even look at me. Trauma. Family trauma. Generational trauma. Family trauma. You know generational trauma. Generational trauma. Generational trauma. Trauma. Trauma. Trauma. By this book you have been with this family for so long. You have cried. You have been emotionally damaged and this book also takes place over the course of I think about like 15 years I want to say at least. It's a long time and I just I haven't read a lot of fantasy series to the end especially like adult high fantasy like this is kind of intimidating to me but by the end the level of detail you are immersed in with this book and the level of connection you have to the family and to everything that's gone on and like the way that things happen in this book that the roots were laid of in the first book I just thought this was an incredible combination of what was a really great series. I didn't love the first in the series. I think I gave it a 3.5 so I liked it but I didn't love it whereas Jade Wall got a 4.5 and this got a 5. I just like I loved it. I read in like two days as well and it's really long. I just thought it was incredible. I thought it was such an amazing feat of writing. Then we have one of the first murder mysteries I ever read and the first Agatha Christie I ever read and that is Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. I am about to do a reread of this pretty soon. I think I've got to read one more in the pro series and then this comes up and I'll do a reread. I think this is a perfect murder mystery. I think it's a perfect murder mystery. So there's a murder that happens on the Orient Express on this train. Proro is there. The train is snowed in as you can see. The train is stuck so Proro's like I'm gonna find out who did this. A big part of Proro figuring it out is I always say a series of interviews. He basically just interviews every single person because you're stuck on a train you know what I mean? Like not a lot's gonna be happening but I loved that. I loved it so much because it allows you to really play detective and try to piece everything together and as this goes on I'm not going to spoil anything but you start thinking like holy ---- what? Like there's a lot going on here and I think you know as this is one of my first murder mysteries this has an incredible ending. It's up there with like Murder of Roger Aykroyd for me with the Agatha Christie's I've read so far with the reveal. Especially I think as like a newbie if you're just getting into murder mysteries this is a great one to read because the ending... I'm so happy I never got spoiled for this in my years leading up to reading this because it is a great ending. You kind of go go! It's so good it's so clever and I love when Agatha... Miss Agatha gives me an ending like that. Next we have House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Clune. This is like a found family, a cozy fantasy story. I'm sure you all know what it's about. We're following Linus Baker who goes to his orphanage and he's supposed to kind of be checking up on how it's being run but it's... it's a found family and the love that they have there. This is just a hug and a book. I just love it. Next! Okay this one is a little bit controversial because it's lower down than you guys would expect. I think you would expect it to be one of the upper two tiers but it's The Guest List by Lucy Foley. What? Now this was once my favourite book of the year but I'm not... I don't know if I... I reread it. Okay this is one of the first murder mysteries I ever read so I love it for what it did for me and like the path it put me down. We're at this wedding on this remote... should I put this higher? I don't know. Just... this could be higher okay but whatever. We're following this wedding at this remote Irish island and there's a murder that happens we know at the beginning but we don't really know who's murdered and we go back in time and we're kind of catching up with time and it's really really... I mean I love Lucy Foley but I reread this last year and I don't know... I mean can a murder mystery like ever, especially one that you really went into so blind and not really knowing the genre, can it ever really match up on a reread? I didn't feel like it it really, you know, was quite as mind-blowing on a reread because I knew everything so I don't know if that was fair of me to do. I loved the writing, I love Lucy Foley's writing, she writes horrible rich characters so so well, like so good. I thought the reveals and how this book unfurled was amazing. Maybe this should be higher, I'm talking myself into it but these are all my favourite books you know so it's tough. Then we have a good girl's guide to murder. In this we're following Pip as she tries to solve a cold case in her town. This is YA mixed media, I love it. Right, Holly Jackson. We're just pretending Five Survived doesn't exist, okay? I love this series, I love it so much, I think it's incredible. This first one, the way that the mystery again unfurls, the mixed media elements are so fun and used in such a fun way throughout this series. She uses things like Fitbits or like I don't know, location data, I don't know, so many interesting things that I think she just does so well and I love Pip as a character and being able to see Pip grow. I think this is just a great solid YA murder mystery. It's a very compelling case, her ties to the case, we've got a girl who went missing, is presumed dead, her boyfriend supposedly confessed and unalived himself a couple days later but Pip isn't convinced that that's the case and I just thought the way that is so good. Okay, I'm like doubting myself. I've left two places in this category for books from the Bear and the Nightingale series but I can't remember which ones are my favourite. Um, can we just say three for two? The rules don't apply. I feel like the Winter of the Witch used to be my favourite but I'm gonna go with the Bear and the Nightingale and Girl in the Tower. So this was one of the first fantasy series I ever fell in love with. Girl, I swear to ******* god, what is going on with you? Yeah, this is one of my first favourite fantasy series. I love it. I love it. We're following Vasya in kind of old Russia as she, it's difficult in this series not to spoil anything, um, she can kind of see household spirits. It's very much Russian folklore and there's also the Winter King, uh, who appears in this story and kind of helps. I don't know. I love this series. I love it so dearly. I've reread the whole series once and it held up and I don't know, it's just so special to me. I love it. Here's the thing, perhaps it's lower than it once would have been because it's not the most complex fantasy. I've read like, you know, Jade Legacy is much more complex but the vibes, the winter vibes, the writing, it's immaculate. It's so good and I can't wait for what Catherine Arda is going to come out with next because after this she wrote like a which I did enjoy but I just want like a YA or adult from her again. I'm craving it and I'm very excited to see what she comes out with. Okay, so now we're in the 15 to 6. So we're in a high, we've jumped up a tier. I'm excited to chat about these. So first we've got The Billet of Mist by Richard Osman. I've talked about this a shitton lately so I'm not going to talk about it much. This is the third in the Thursday Maid Club series. You know, you can probably guess we're going to see number one later on so we'll talk about it more then. You naughty naughty, you teasing me, you naughty naughty. But this was a great continuation of the series for me. Richard Osman, I can't believe how amazing his books are. I genuinely can't. I found out the other day the first two books were the most two borrowed books from British libraries last year. How crazy is that? It's doing so well. My murder mystery faves, I love them so much. I've given the whole series five stars. It's incredible. Okay, we'll talk about it later because we're gonna talk about number one later but The Billet of Mist is on here. Then we have a book that I still don't, well I say I don't own, I finally bought it. I was thinking about this list and I was like, why have I not bought a copy of this book? Because usually if I listen to a book or an audiobook I just don't buy a copy but I'm like Megan, it's time. So Sadie by Courtney Summers. Oh my god, this book. So we're following Sadie whose sister was murdered and half of the book is Sadie trying to find out what happened to her sister, who did this to her sister. And then Sadie has gone missing in the present day and there's a podcast and a podcast host trying to tell the story of what has happened to Sadie, trying to find out what's happened to her. And this book was incredible. This book is incredible. I feel like it was pretty like, you know, an originator of putting a podcast in a book. I feel like it wasn't done a lot before that and like tapping into the nature of true crime and it's full cast. The audiobook's great. It's full cast so like when the host interviews people we get different voices for them. Courtney Summers, right, you guys know that Courtney Summers is one of my favourite authors ever, okay. And the hurt and the pain that this book caused me, my god. Everything hurts and I'm dying. I was thinking about it the other day actually and I was remembering when I read, when I listened to the audiobook for the first time and before that when I was listening to audiobooks I would always be doing something. But I remember for the ending of Sadie I just sat there on my bed and just listened and I was like, and I immediately stomped into my mum's room. I was like, you don't know! I was like sobbing. It's a lot. So I love this. It was a book that got me into audiobooks. It introduced me to Courtney Summers. That was a loud slap. So yeah, I love Sadie and I'm, my copy is arriving in the next couple of days, finally. Oh ----. Oh ----. I just realised I haven't put a book on here. Oh ----. Okay, we have a problem. When making this list I only looked at past years. I didn't take into account any of my reading this year because I was like, I don't have one of my top 20. I do. There is a top 25. Okay, this is going to be top 26. We'll talk about that book in a sec after this one. One of my favourite fantasy books ever is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I love that. This book is, again, very difficult to describe. We find, we meet a guy, a protagonist, who finds a book that something that happened to him is written in it but he can't understand like how is that possible because there was no one there when it happened and we go into this world of like books and craziness and I don't even know how to describe it. It was so long ago I read this but Erin Morgenstern's writing does something to me. It does something to me. I love Erin Morgenstern's writing. It's gonna be for you or not. I'm waiting, right? Erin Morgenstern only has two books out. I'm waiting. It's probably gonna be like at least another five years but I'm waiting. Just the magic and the whimsy and the, I need to reread this. I need to reread this. I need to reread this. I love it so much. I think it's so magical. I, this was, again, at the very early days of me getting back into reading. I had no idea who Erin Morgenstern was when I picked this up. I thought I discovered a book like no one knows about this. It wasn't the case. I fell in love. I don't know how else to describe it to you. I fell in love. I loved it so much. Okay, the book that I forgot to put on here was Legends and Lattes by Travis Bowdrey. Yes, it's new. We have a bit of recency bias but I adored this. So in this, we're following an orc who wants to leave her lives of adventuring behind and starts up a coffee shop and it is the most cute, wholesome, lovely, comforting book you have ever read. It is incredible. I think the writing is incredible. It is so feel-good. It is so lovely. It is so, oh! Thimble, the character Thimble, a love of my life, love of my life. Just the descriptions of like coffee and baking in this, I can't. I loved this. It is incredible. Obviously, it's been everywhere but if you haven't read it yet, I'm like... So, 26 favourite books of all time apparently. Next, we have another book. Oh my god, I've been talking for so long already. We're like halfway through. Holy ----. Should we speed it up a little bit? Next, we have this *******... What is going on with you? Do you have, like, I don't understand. Have I dropped it or something? One of the books I read a very long time ago that I love dearly, Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I don't need to speak too long about this. We're following Hollywood Starlet Evelyn Hugo. By the way, I have always wanted to read another book set in old Hollywood and I just can't. Why is there not more? I think Siren Queen by Nevo on my TBR is. I want more. I want more books set in old Hollywood. What a vibe. Like, there's so much to draw from from this era. Anyways, we're following the story told by Evelyn Hugo of her life and of her seven husbands and her one true love and god, what a book. What a moment. Taylor Jenkins read. You guys know I have given five stars to every single Taylor Jenkins read that I have ever read. I love this book and Evelyn Hugo and Taylor Jenkins read so much. God, what a book. What a book. What a book. What a book. What a time. That's all I need to say. Then we have, I think, the only romance on this list and that is The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. I don't want to hear any criticism. I love The Love Hypothesis dearly. I love it dearly. Okay, my favorite romance ever. Yes, it's Kylo Ren fanfiction. We don't need to talk about that, okay? We're following these two scientists as they fall in love. It is the best, okay? I love Ali Hazelwood. You can attack me. I don't care. Yes, her writing is fanfic-y. That's why I like it. I grew up reading fanfic. That was my life. I grew up reading One Direction fanfic, so I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. It did something to me. It ignited me loving romance and Ali Hazelwood will forever be my favorite romance author. I'm saying it and I'm saying it now. Then we have another from the Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, As Good as Dead. It ranks a bit above A Good Girl's Guide to... It ranks a bit above A Good Girl's Guide to Murder for me. Listen, this book is marmite. People will love it or hate it. I think it is one of the boldest, ballsiest things an author has ever done with an end of a series that I have read. Like, it goes there, right? So you're following Pip. She's a school girl. She's a goody girl, you know, whatever. And over the course of the series, she's been struggling with what she's doing. Like, is she doing the right thing with what she's doing and uncovering these cases and solving these cases? And she gets these letters in this one, this last one, saying, who will look for you when you're the one who disappears? Seems she has a stalker. The, like, wireless printer turns on and people are printing stuff into her house from somewhere outside. And then this book takes a turn. Oh, how the tables have turned. I'm not gonna tell you what it is, but it takes a turn. And if you've read I, the way this made me feel. We've got another book coming up like this. Tense. Tense, tense, tense. It is incredible. It is a work of art. It is high, high, high stakes. And I loved it. I loved it. But some people don't like it, but I think it's incredible. And some people moan about the ending of this and how it's open and like, oh, what happens? Have some reading comprehension. It's obvious what happens. It's obvious how this ends. They're like, oh, I wanted this to happen, but I don't know if it will. It does, okay? It does. Read. Anyways, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I think it's incredible. Then we've got my other favorite graphic novel other than T. Jacobs Society. It's Heartstopper, okay? I'm shocked. It's a shocking news. I put Heartstopper 1 on this list, but I genuinely don't know which my favorite is. So we'll just, we'll just say this one. But it could be any in the series, if we're honest. You all know what this is about now because of the Netflix show. Nick and Charlie fall in love. Whatever. It's about these two guys falling in love. This is what I'm saying. I like cute graphic novels. So cute and wholesome and lovely and wonderful. You guys, it's incredible. It's incredible. It's incredible. I love it. I love it so much. Gosh. I liked the TV show. I didn't love it as much as I love this. Just Alice Oseman, you do something to me. I like when I read a YA book and it's set in high school and these characters fall in love and it's realistic to what it was like, you know? Sometimes I feel like characters act away. I'm like, oh, that would never happen. Like the nervousness. There's like falling in love when you're like 15, 16 or whatever, how old they are in this. Like it's terrible. Like it fills you with a *******, I didn't eat for days. It's horrible. Like you, you feel nervous and anxious and like, doesn't it like me? You know what I mean? It's a completely different ball game as an adult. But yeah, we know I love Heartstopper the best. Then we have the other book that I was mentioning in relation to As Good As Dead. And that is No Exit by Taylor Adams. I always say for me, I think this is the perfect thriller. It's a perfect thriller. So we're calling, is her name Darcy? I want to say her name's Darcy. Darby. Sorry. She's driving through this blizzard. She gets snowed in at the service station and there's some other people there as well. And she goes out into the car park at one point and finds out that there is a child locked up in one of the vans outside. And this book, I have never felt more sick, more apprehensive, more tense. It's horrible. It is the perfect thriller. You enter this book, it is level 100 from the get go. Like it's not, it's not going to go down. It is level 100 from the get go. I think it's incredible. Again, this was adapted on Disney Plus actually. I liked the adaptation. I didn't like some of the character changes they made. I thought they were unnecessary. But it does do a good job of, particularly towards the end, having that same like, but it's not as good as the book. The book is incredible. It's incredible. And then finally, in this tier, we have numbers two and three in the, what are these called again? My favourite series ever. Oh, The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club. That's why, because it's complicated. Listen, for a long time I said, we're not seeing number one, so we know that's happening. This is my favourite series of all time. For a long time, I said number two was my favourite in the series. But I haven't reread this. I've reread number one. I keep meaning to reread this and just not getting around to it. So I'm putting it in this tier because, I mean, let's be honest, I could put all three of these in the top tier, but I decided to show some restraint. Okay, so know that when number one is on the top tier, it's doing some heavy lifting because these are kind of there with it as well. In this we're following these monstrous girls, the Athena Club, and By the Time, and these two. It's a found family. It's the best thing ever. We've got *******, you know, Dracula showing up. I love it. I think these girls, oh gosh, I always say I want ten more. I always say if I win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is setting up a publishing house and just paying Theodora Goss to write more of these books. I love the way it's written. It's written by one of the girls, Catherine, and the other girls will cut in when they don't agree with something. We're about to talk about this series again, but I love it. And I always say number two is my favourite, I think, but I haven't put it in there because I haven't reread it. But it's so long and it has no business, it's like 800 pages, it has no business being this long, but it means I get extra time with the girls, so I do not care. Okay, now we're into my top five books of all time. This is tricky, okay, but I think I said, I think, I think that I stand by this. I'm saying it now. I think that I stand by this. Okay, so this book was not my favourite, but my second favourite book of 2021. So I had a pretty good reading year in 2021, because number one is on here as well. But this was my second favourite, and it is The Once and Future Witches by Alex E. Harrow. Oh my gosh, it has so many of my favourite things in this, right? Imagine beautiful lyrical writing a la Erin Morgenstern. We've got sisters, I love sisters, I don't know why. We've got witches, they're sisters who are witches. They're in, this is in 1893 in New Salem, I want to say, yes. And it's about them, they're kind of like wrapped up in the story of the suffragists who are kind of campaigning at the time. This book, what a, what a moment, what a moment. I need to reread this one as well. I keep saying this, but yeah, it's so good. It's so good. Sisters who are witches. I don't get, like, the writing, incredible. Storyline, incredible. Vibes, incredible. Everything, incredible. I don't even know how to describe this book to you. The relationship that you see between these sisters grow over time. I don't even have words for it. I don't even, I don't even know what to say to you. What to say to you? It is incredible, incredible, incredible. Loves of my life. I love them, I love this story. Then we have another one that I spoke about earlier, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, okay? It's here. It's in my top five. We are following these group of friends who live in a retirement home and they have a Thursday murder club where they try to solve cold cases and murder turns up on their doorstep, baby. It's so good. These books are so funny, so heartwarming, such a incredible look at the human race and human nature and what life is and what life, what it means to live life. Like, it's amazing. I can't tell you how much I love these books. They always leave me feeling hopeful, but at the end of the day, they're a great murder mystery as well. I love them. I do understand why if you're from the US or Canada or just not from the UK, I'm not saying you're not gonna love this because plenty of people have given this five stars who don't live in the UK, but it is very much British humour and a lot of British references, like in terms of like celebrities or like, I'm just thinking of The Bullet That Missed, like when it talks about local news, like what our local news is like, like you just have to be there, like to get it. Do you know what I mean? There's a lot of niche British references, but that's not to say you can't enjoy outside of that. This book, oh this one, I've just remembered some things that happened in this one. Let's not talk about it. It made me sob. This is what trauma looks like. Sob. Because at the end of the day, right, I'm not gonna spoil anything about this series, but like, we're following elderly characters, so there is a lot about the fragility of life at the end of the day, and that's why it makes you want to get out there and just live life, because it reminds you like, we're only here once. Do you know what I mean? And yeah, wow, what a moment. Incredible, incredible book. These books are also super popular in Germany apparently. I remember him saying that like, top of the list in Germany. So I don't know, but I love them. Okay, the next book. I don't know how much I stand by this, but I feel like because of what it did for me, and it's the whole reason we're here today, I have not reread this. I will reread it at one point, but I have to put it on here, okay? And it is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. The other day I got a secret history. I think you'd love it. Oh my god. So those of you who don't know, I stopped reading for many years. I got super consumed with school. I was that kind of girl. I was a nerd. And I stopped doing a lot of stuff I love, and I stopped reading. And this was the book that got me back into reading. I read, I think I read about 10 books in 2018. I was reading a little bit, but then I read this in 2019. I went on to read like 80 books. It made me fall back in love with reading. I've never reread it. It's been four years, okay? And my reading has blown up since then. I never, I mean when I used to read when I was younger, I'd probably only read like only, but I probably read like 20 books a year maybe. So my reading taste, and what I know I love, has exploded. And I'm nervous to reread this because I don't know how I'd react to it. There's like this friendship group, and there's... what they study? I don't even remember. Is it Latin? Something like that at university. One of, we know at the beginning that there's a death, a murder perhaps, within this friendship group. I vividly still remember reading this. I remember sitting on the sofa, like at New Year's, around that time, and just being so... I couldn't tear my eyes off of it. I loved it. And so it's the reason I'm here today. It's the reason I'm making YouTube videos. Yes, I don't know how it holds up. Yes, I think there's been some discussion of some problematic elements. But I feel like with this book, it's like you're following terrible characters, right? You are, you are following... and it was written a long time ago. It was written, what, 1990s, I want to say? 1992 would be my guess. 1992, oh my god. Look at her. So I mean, you have to take that into account, but you're following awful characters. These are horrible people. This book means a lot to me, and I'm terrified to reread it because I don't know how I'm going to react to it. So I don't mention it a lot anymore because I don't know to what extent I stand by it. But it was my favourite book. For a very long time, I said this was my favourite book. Is it still? I don't know. I don't know, but it's the whole reason we're here today. So there we have it. Then we have my favourite book of last year, and that is Babel Babel by Harve Cronin. I... this book, wow. Incredible. No notes. Incredible. We're following... I seem to like university. I do like university. I love a good university setting. We are following these group of translators at Oxford, and we're in a fantastical world where there's like... the magic system is powered on translation and silverworking with that translation, and I just love this. I love footnotes, but I just thought R. F. King's writing in this was incredible. The writing, the development, what this book means, what it's saying about history and about present day and about colonialism and racism and everything. I don't even know how to describe it. I love this, and I cannot tell you enough how much I love this book. I think it's amazing. I can't wait for everything R. F. King is going to write in the future. I think she's like one of the best writers of our present day, in my opinion. Tom, my boyfriend, has just started reading. He was never a reader, but he's just read the Wolf Hall trilogy, and then after that he's going to read Pachinko, because I got him that for Christmas because I thought he would enjoy it. And then he's reading this, and I'm very excited to see what he thinks of it. Nervous, because, you know, he can be a scathing critic if he doesn't like something, but this book is near and dear to my heart, and it's going to be a favourite forever to come. And then the final book, oh my god, this is like the longest I've ever spoken, but this is my favourite book, so can you blame me? Holy ----, oh my god, that actually made my heart hurt. Oh my god. Final book, Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss. This is my favourite series. I need to reread the number two and three. I could reread them forever though. Like, I love these so much, I have to kind of keep myself away from them a bit, because I could just read these books over and over again. I cannot tell you how much I need more. So I can't remember what I told you, but we're following daughters or female versions of classic men from Victorian literature. We've got Mary Jekyll and Diana Hyde, we've got Catherine Moreau, Justine Frankenstein, Beatrice Rappaccini, and it's them solving mysteries together. Sherlock and Watson are there, but they're kind of in the background. The girls are the star of the show, and it's... I love Victorian, right? I've always loved Victorian history since I was a kid. I was super into Victorian history, so I love a book set in Victorian times, and I think it's such a great setting for, like, mysteries, because it's like dirty, dingy, like Jack the Ripper, like, you know what I mean? And there's these girls that I've never... I'm not a big, like, character person, like, you know when, like, people run fan accounts, like, you know, that's great for you, but, like, I can't imagine. I've never read many books where, like, I love the characters. I'm much more of, like, a plot and writing girl, but these characters I would fight to the death for. I need 10 more Theodore girls. I'm gonna ring her up. I'm actually done. I'm actually gonna write. I've never contacted her because I'm kind of, like, afraid, like, oh my gosh, like, I'm actually, like, a crazy fan, but I'm gonna be like, please I just love it so much. These books are my perfect books. Mystery, Victorian, these girls. I love how it reclaims women's place within classic Victorian literature and uplifts these women and makes them the star of the show. It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. So they're... oh my god, I actually feel sick. That was my top 26 books of all time, because we had to add in Legends and Lattes. It is... it has solidified itself in my... I wonder if any other books this year... oh my god, how exciting. I wonder if more books this year will solidify themselves in my top 25 books. I'm hoping. I just... I'm feeling more and more of a time I do get to know my reading taste. To be fair, from last year there wasn't a ton of new favourites, so we do need to go on the hunt and get more. But, um, yeah, I hope you enjoyed this video. It was... that's... this is a long video. This is gonna be... I mean, I've got 45 minutes of raw footage. I don't know what I will have gotten it down to. This is a long video. So thank you for watching. Uh, if you've gotten to the end, please tell me what your... some of your favourite books of all time are. I would love to know. And comment a star emoji, you guys. Thank you for watching. I love you. And I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!