How do you choose?

I recently (well, in April) took part in World Book Night. The idea behind it is brilliant; try get people reading again. Thats basically it. Get people reading who don't normally read, or get avid readers to try something different.

I got picked to hand out 24 copies of Audrey Nifeneggers 'The Time Traveller's Wife' , which is a fantastic novel, and I surprised myself in having managed to give them all away within a couple of days.

Anyway, I received an email this week from the WBN people (thats what us cool kids call it) asking me to choose my top ten favourite books and send them the list. This is how they choose their books each year. Book fanatics such as myself send them our top tens, they then make a top 100 of the most titles that appear most often, and then whittle it down to 25. Tough job.

But it got me thinking, how do you choose ten? Just ten? Is it even possible? The first book that came to mind immediately was Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle. I read this last November and it took my breath away. I want to buy a hundred copies and pass them out to family, friends and even strangers just saying Please Read This! Davidson's first novel (that fact also blew me away! How?) is a compelling, if slightly skew-ways story of a man with no future, and a woman who gives him a past, and in doing so creates a new future for him. I guess thats the best way to describe it. It's gruesome to begin with and there were moments when I was almost closing the book, but I couldn't. The writing was so detailed that the story of a burn victim was painful to take, but the story was so engaging that I couldn't bear to put it down.

But what about books 2 through 10? How do I choose them?

My list so far is:

1 – Andrew Davidson – The Gargoyle

2 – Patrick Rothfuss – The Name Of The Wind

3 – Raymond E Feist – Fairie Tale

4 – Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie

5 – Jim Dodge – Fup

6 – Neil Gaiman – American Gods

7 – Mitch Albom – For One More Day
8 - Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games

Two would have to be The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Again, a first novel. (And again, How?) Never before have I waited so long for a man as I have done for Kvothe. I read The Name Of The Wind four years ago, and the second book in the trilogy was only released last March. Three years waiting nearly drove me mad. But the second installment was just as fantastic as the first. The story centres around the life and trials of one young Kvothe, a student of a university with a difference. It's hard to describe, but trust me, if you like your fantasy novels, try Rothfuss on for size.

Three: Hmm, very probably it would have to still be in the fantasy veign and be Fairie Tale by Raymond E. Feist. I read this book first when I was about 15, and it scared the bejayses out of me! And it still does. I've read it several times and it is always a brilliant read. A family move from the city into an old house in the middle of nowhere next to a forest. But what they don't realise is that the forest isn't any usual place, and the fairie folk don't take kindly to their new neighbours.

Four: I found this book through a movie, the way I do a lot of books. Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom is a true story surrounding a man who finds his old college professor years later. Morrie Schwartz was an incredible man with a lot of insight and he shared a lot of these thoughts with Mitch. It's a book that is bound to make you emotional, and to make you think about those people in your life that you have lost touch with.


Will write again soon with descriptions of the rest.