When I became a book blogger, half-way through the first year I tracked my reading, I made a point of reviewing the previous few months’ books and summing them all up at the end. But besides the odd mention here and there, I never noted the books I’d read before tracking/blogging. This number is obviously a bit too high to make into a blog post and trying to remember everything I’ve read would take a while. In planning this post I’ve realised the truth of my memories of using the library a great deal when younger – I don’t have copies of most of the books I know I read then.

Due to how many books this idea would involve, I’ve limited it to those I own (so regarding the above, not many) and I’m excluding children’s books, including only young adult books and ‘teenager’ books – I think that’s more accurate to what we called them back then. Including only the books I own has the added bonus of me knowing for certain that I read them.

I’ve left out books I’ve re-read since starting my blog. I may end up re-reading some of the books listed – I certainly hope to in some cases – but writing this post ensures I’ve at least commented on them somewhat. Lisa Jewell’s pre-literary/historical work dominates.

I’m not sure the above makes total literal sense – I’m suffering a bit from heatstroke – but hopefully it’s enough for you to get the idea. I thought I’d list them in the order I remembered them in rather than alphabetically – it has the added bonus of creating two equal ‘halves’. Here we go:

Alma Alexander: The Secrets Of The Jin-Shei – A historical fantasy. This is about a China where women are the dominant gender. It has some magic in it, some battles, and is fairly diverse, but a word of warning must be given regarding the sexual violence which isn’t softened by the magical concepts behind it, no matter how much that may have been the intention. I intend to re-read this one and get an idea of how it reads now I’m old enough not to be so in subjective awe of the genre.

Arthur Golden: Memoirs Of A Geisha – Historical. This is about a young girl who grows up to be a geisha in the years towards the end of the profession. Since made into a film so I doubt I need to note too much. I’m not sure if I’ll re-read it.

Lisa Jewell: Ralph’s Party, Thirty-nothing, One-Hit Wonder, A Friend Of The Family, Vince & Joy, 31 Dream Street – Chick-lit. I’m going to sum these up as it was a phase and say that they were pretty good, escapism. Didn’t like Jewell’s use of ‘spastic’ however and am glad she seems to have now dropped it from her more recent books.

Maile Meloy: Liars And Saints – Contemporary, mostly and may be classed now as literary fiction. This is about different generations of a family, fairly dysfunctional people. Reading this made me feel very grown up. I want to re-read it in the near future as I’d like to read it in the way I read now and work out just what all the sex was for.

Anchee Min: Empress Orchid – Historical about the last empress of China, Ci Xi. Min is quite forgiving of her character but not completely. Suffice to say this is a difficult read at times but good nonetheless. I intend to re-read it.

Terry Pratchett: The Colour Of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort – The first four Discworld novels. I wasn’t too keen on the first two, but Granny Weatherwax of the third is great and Mort remains my favourite so far.

Celia Rees: Witch Child – Historical fantasy. A girl with witch-like powers travels to the New World. I don’t remember too much of the story but do remember it made me cry. I’ll re-read it at some point.

Celia Rees: Sorceress – Fantasy. Set in the present day this is about a descendent of the heroine of Witch Child and her discoveries. Pretty good but not as good. I’ll probably read it as par for the course.

I used to read a lot more fantasy than I do now, though I still love it. The later teen years were when I discovered historical fantasy; for a while I read nothing else. I still have the sequel to the Alexander on my shelves to read; I bought it because it made sense at the time but upon reading the blurb I discovered it’s quite a bit different. Still, I’m glad I have it because it’s difficult to find nowadays.

There are so many books I want to re-read to see how I find them in, as said above, to ‘read it in the way I read now’. I have that urge to re-read constantly, finding that the more I read the more I feel I should go back and re-read books read previously because I’ve changed, grown as a reader, and so on. I even find myself feeling that way about books I read in more recent years. I think we all feel this way at times.

What books did you read in your younger years that stood out to you? Do you think you’d still like them if you read them now?