Favourite Books

An idiosyncratic annotated list of favourite books - with links

FAVOURITE BOOKS

An idiosyncratic annotated list with links

These are the books which I value most, for many different reasons. I'll add new titles and groups from time to time, and relevant links as I find them. Some annotations are coming soon (ie. not here yet) - this page is an ongoing work. A navigation grouping is repeated regularly throughout the list for your convenience.

Your feedback is welcome. Which have you read? Which are your most significant books? And if you can suggest links, then please do. You can use The Guestbook or Email.

Classic Children's Books

Aust. Children's Classics

Satisfying Fiction

Fairytales

Fantasy Fiction

Literary Fiction

Auto/Biography

Travel Nonfiction

Reference and Language

Essays and Collections

Crime Fiction

Teenlit

Picture Books

Christmas Books

Society and Culture

Natural History

Food and Cooking

About Children's Books

FINDING THESE BOOKS YOURSELF

If you wish to track down any titles, try your local library, interlibrary loan, bookshops new and second-hand. Some of these books I've read in English editions, some in American; the division of the English speaking world by publishers means that some may not have been published throughout the English-speaking world. On the Internet, try :

Amazon (US, huge database)
Barnes and Noble (US, huge database)
Gleebooks (Aust)
The Internet Bookshop (UK)
e-texts - out-of-copyright texts may be available online - I'll add links here as I find them (and you're welcome to advise me of any you find). Some links will take you to the text, some to index pages with a link to the text. As e-texts can be large files (some over 1000K) be aware that you may have to be patient. The Online Books Page is an excellent index of e-texts.

Classic Children's Books

Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne - I don't remember not knowing Winnie-the-Pooh; the absurdity, the wordplay, the turning logic, the humanity. The original toys are in a branch of the New York Public Library, the one near MOMA I think, resting in a glass case upstairs.
- Winnie-the-Pooh
- The house at Pooh Corner
- When we were very young
- Now we are six
The Little House books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Authentic accounts of what it was like to be a girl in pioneering America. Precise descriptions, gripping in their plainness, not afraid to be sharp.
- Little house in the big woods
- Little house on the prairie
- On the banks of Plum Creek
- By the shores of Silver Lake
- The long winter
- Little Town on the prairie
- These happy golden years
- The first four years
- Farmer boy
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M.Montgomery - I didn't have red hair, and I didn't fancy myself as imaginative a creature as Anne - but she was a true and living character, and remains so through Lucy Maud's sharp observations. And I rather liked Rilla.
- Anne of Green Gables - e-text link
- Anne of Avonlea - e-text
- Anne of the Island - e-text link
- Anne of Windy Willows
- Anne's House of Dreams - e-text link
- Anne of Ingleside
- Rilla of Ingleside
- Chronicles of Avonlea
- Further Chronicles of Avonlea
- Links:
  - Leaskdale Manse Museum - LMM's home after she married
  - L.M. Montgomery Institute
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter - and all the other titles - e-text link to Project Gutenberg, The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter which includes many titles, but no illustrations; Mrs Tittlemouse remains a particular favourite of mine.
- The Tale of Mr Tod - e-text
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - and also The Wild Wood by Jan Needle, to give a different perspective on the book. Kenneth Grahame also wrote the stories in
- Dream Days - e-text
- The Golden Age - e-text
  - Links: Willowind, a commercial site in the US, has a summary page of the book, with Arthur Rackham illustrations and ickymidi music (be warned!)
  - University of Virginia literary archives has the complete e-text of The Wind in the Willows
Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott
- Little Women - - e-text; another e-text
- Good Wives - e-text
- Little Men
- Jo's Boys
And Alcott's other series, about Rose
- Eight cousins
- Rose in bloom
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome - I read these books and wanted so much to try sailing...
- Swallows and Amazons - & all its sequels
- Links:
  - Arthur Ransome 1884-1967 has information and further links
  - Arthur-Ransome.org is the home of AR societies and has more info/links
Daddy-long-legs by Jean Webster
- Daddy-long-legs
- Dear enemy - e-text
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
- The Borrowers
- The Borrowers Afield
- The Borrowers Aloft
- The Borrowers Afloat
- The other Borrowers title I can't remember just now
The iron man by Ted Hughes - Which is a modern classic. The iron man stood at the top of the cliff. Where had he come from? Nobody knows....
Sarah, plain and tall by Patricia McLachlan - Another modern classic, where much is audible and wordless between the lines. Motherless children in pioneer America and their father's courtship of Sarah from Maine, who describes herself as plain and tall.
Watership Down by Richard Adams - To call it a rabbit saga is to reduce its power as a story.
Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
- The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
- Prince Caspian
- The voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The silver chair
- The one I've forgotten
- The magician's nephew
- The last battle
Robin Hood - Robin Hood was one of my childhood heroes. The Roger Lancelyn Green version in Puffin was the one I read as a child - and I remember once my mother finding me in tears. She asked what was the matter. Robin Hood died, I said, having just read the ending. I've read other versions, but the McKinley's the best of the others, and a different take on the tale.
- The adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
- The outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley
The snow goose by Paul Gallico - Especially the edition with illustrations and colour plates by Peter Scott. Sad without sentimentality, and with imagery that stays in the mind.
Frances Hodgson Burnett - who has a nice line in sharp-tongued assertive little girls. Forget Little Lord Whatsisface.
- The Secret Garden - e-text
- The Little Princess - e-text

Classic Australian Children's Books

These are the ones I can't tell you about, beyond listing them; none belonged in my childhood reading, and they are not the same when you come to them grown. They're listed here for reference, but you'll have to seek elsewhere for opinion.

Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall
The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs
The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
The Muddle-headed Wombat by someone or other.

Satisfying Fiction

These authors haven't Nobel Prizes, but they're stories I enjoyed and continue to enjoy. Some may be hard to find except in second-hand shops.

The Valley of Decision by Marcia Davenport
I heard the owl call my name by Margaret Craven
The blue castle by L.M. Montgomery
Georgette Heyer
- Venetia
- Frederica
- The Grand Sophy
- The toll-gate
- The unknown Ajax
- These old shades
- The devil's cub
- almost all her other historical fiction titles. But not all.
- Links:
  - The Georgette Heyer Mailing List Companion - info and links
  - The Georgette Heyer Home Page - info and links
Agnes Sligh Turnbull
- The gown of glory (in 1952 this was #8 bestseller in the US, in company with My cousin Rachel and The old man and the sea - but Du Maurier and Hemingway were higher on the list - click here to see it.
- The nightingale
- The wedding bargain
- The bishop's mantle is her best known, but I don't like it as much as the others
- Links:
  - The Indiana University of Pennsylvania has a brief note re its AST archive collection
Matthew Ratton by Anne Knowles
Lynne Reid Banks
- The L-shaped room - & its sequels
How to make an American quilt by Whitney Otto - I admire the way she segues from quilt instructions to life descriptions - the instructions are my favourite part of this book.
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy - as much as anything for the maelstrom of language and imagery.
Elizabeth Goudge - I have an affection for all her work, though I now notice the sweetness (sometimes too sweet) that I noticed less when I was younger in her historical fiction. There's a recognizableness in her work and characters which is no less endearing for being recognizable, a tolerance for human failure and a value placed on simple joys.
- Green dolphin country
- The white witch
- Towers in the mist
- Gentian hill
- The herb of grace (& Damerosehay series)
- Links
  - Elizabeth Goudge, Author

Literary Fiction

Don't assume these aren't satisfying - it's just another category

Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen - e-text - this site includes additional info and links
The bone people by Keri Hulme
The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood
- Links
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - e-text
Villette by Charlotte Bronte - check here to see if an e-text is available
A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters by Julian Barnes - it's the 1/2 chapter I reread most often
Snow falling on cedars by David Guterson
- Links
  - Study guide from the Random House site
The shipping news by E. Annie Proulx
Tim O'Brien
- The things they carried - like Otto's quilting instructions, he makes mere lists stand for a catalogue of character
- In the lake of the woods
- Links
- Tim O'Brien info and links
- Tim O'Brien home page (unofficial)
Black water by Joyce Carol Oates
Perfume by Patrick Suskind - a repellent character in a book which you can't not finish
The giant's house by Elizabeth McCracken - the spinster librarian and the odd giant boy in a book that does avoid cliche.

Fairytales

Cinderella by Perrault
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Rose daughter by Robin McKinley
Angela Carter's versions of fairy tales, in books such as the Bloody Chamber.
The Andrew Lang fairy books - Blue, Violet, Magenta, Puce, Lilac, Red, more colours than a Lakeland by Derwent pencil box - e-texts of some

Fantasy Fiction

Damar series by Robin McKinley
- The blue sword by Robin McKinley
- The hero and the crown, by Robin McKinley
Deerskin by Robin McKinley
Earthsea series by Ursula Le Guin
- A wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
- The tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin
- The farthest shore by Ursula Le Guin
- Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin
The left hand of darkness by Ursula Le Guin

Auto/Biography

Angela's ashes by Frank McCourt
Silences of the heart by Elizabeth Latham
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Motherlove edited by Debra Adelaide
Motherlove 2 edited by Debra Adelaide
A letter to our son by Peter Carey
The blue jay's dance by Louise Erdrich
An American childhood by Annie Dillard
Unstrung heroes by Franz Lidz - a sick mother, an overachieving father and two mad uncles living in New York populate this account of a different kind of American childhood
The bunburyists by Anthony Hill - going to live in the country near Canberra.
The ballad of Typhoid Mary by J.F. Federspiel - the real story of Typhoid Mary's sad life

Travel

Bill Bryson
- The lost continent
- Notes from a small island
- Neither here nor there
- A walk in the woods
In the deep end by Tony Perrotet
Hunting Mr Heartbreak by Jonathan Raban
Stephen Brook
- Maple leaf rag
- New York days, New York nights
- Honky tonk gelato
The battle for room service by Mark Lawson
Road fever by Tim Cahill - travelling from the tip of South America to the end of all roads in the North, trying to beat a record - and writing a very funny book in the process.
New York - the eyewitness guide (Dorling Kindersley) - jams in more info and pics than you would believe, covering the little information and the large
Let's go guides - I used the USA one and it was a fund of valuable info and advice for budget travelling.
Memory Ireland by Vincent Buckley - part memoir, part travelogue
Blue highways by William Least-Heat Moon - travelling the blue roads, the lesser roads on the map in a large circle around America, the writer manages to be respectful of the oddities of those he meets and casts an observant eye on the America he discovers.
The drive-thru museum: across the USA by Andy Souter - America seems to prompt amusing travel books.
Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome - a sort-of travel book; a classic; and very funny

Reference and Language

Roget's thesaurus
The Oxford companion to English literature - and the other companions eg. to Aust lit., Children's lit.
The superior person's little book of words by Peter Bowler
Don't judge a rook by its cover
The Macquarie Dictionary - the Australian dictionary par excellence
The Oxford Dictionary - full ed. is magnificent but the concise is useful. One day I'll invest in the Shorter.
The Oxford dictionary of quotations - I have the third edition and find it a source of the known, the unknown, the unexpected and the delightful. Wouldn't be without it. All those nonetities, transformed by a moment of aptness or wit! (Also Shakespeare etc.)
The annotated onomasticon by Peter Bowler
The well tempered sentence by somebody Gordon - the joy of this book is in the ludicrous, surreal and wonderfully funny example sentences.
Bill Bryson on the English of England and America
- Mother tongue
- Made in America

Essays & Collections

Best American essays series

Crime Fiction

Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton
- A is for alibi
- B is for burglar
- C is for corpse
- D is for deadbeat
- E is for evidence
- F is for fugitive
- G is for gumshoe
- H is for homicide
- I is for innocent
- J is for judgement
Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell
PD James
Cracker series
Simisola by Ruth Rendell (fine given name) - what I liked about this one was the final turn of the plot, which implicated the reader. Can't say more or I'd give too much away. An Inspector Wexford book, but he's usually too stolid for me.
Inspector Morse series by Colin Dexter - depopulating Oxford
Presumed innocent by Scott Turow

Teenlit

Tillerman series by Cynthia Voigt
- Homecoming
- Dicey's song
- A solitary blue
- Runner
- Sons from afar
- Come a stranger - in which there is this piece towards the end, when Mina Smiths has set up a meeting between her minister and the nephew of his (dead in Vietnam) childhood friend, but he is more pleased to meet his friend's mother: ...she had wrapped up this gift for Mr Shipp, but he had taken something she hadn't even known she was putting in. Mina looked at Tamer Shipp, at the familiar planes and curves of his face: He was glad, the gift had gladdened him. That was what Mina had wanted, so she didn't mind at all that what he had taken was not exactly what she had given. I don't know quite why I like that idea so much, but I do.
- Seventeen against the dealer
Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian
Tell me if the lovers are losers by Cynthia Voigt
Izzy willy-nilly by Cynthia Voigt
Fifteen by Beverly Cleary
Seventeen by Maureen Daly
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
Finwood and Lisa by Barbara Wels
Happy endings by Adele Geras
Rosemary Sutcliff - her historical fiction is so accurate in detail and humanity
- Warrior scarlet
- Sun horse, moon horse
- The eagle of the ninth
Remembrance of the sun by Kate Gilmore

Picture Books

In the middle of the night by Kathy Henderson, illustrated by Jennifer Eachus - just when you think you've got this one pegged as a spooky night tale, it turns into a story about the lives ordinary people live after dark, rocking restless babies, cleaning offices, sorting mail, cleaning streets and, in hospital, dying and being born. The language has the power of poetry.
The sea of tranquillity by Mark Haddon, illustrated by Christian Birmingham - I discovered this book by accident in a remainder shop; a man remembers his boyhood dreaming about the moon and the men who were then landing on it. When I read this to my nieces and nephews, it prompted long conversations about the moon and planets and what was in the stars.
Beginning with Mrs McBee by - I'll check and let you know. But it was my favourite picture book when I was a child, and one of my nieces in particular loves it now.
The sparrow's story at the King's command by Judith Crabtree
The velveteen rabbit by Margery Williams - there are lots of editions of this with various illustrators
The midwives's daughters by Marion Halligan
The apartment book by - um....
The whales' song by Dyan Sheldon, illustrated by Gary Blythe
Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak

Christmas Books

Most of these are children's stories - which does nothing to prevent adult enjoyment of them.

The nativity by Mem Fox, illustrated by Julie Vivas
The polar express by Chris von Allsburg
The Mole family's Christmas by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lilian Hoban
The snowman by Raymond Briggs
Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells
The steadfast tin soldier by Hans Christian Anderson - picture book illustrated by Fred Marcellino
Little Dracula's Christmas by Martin Waddell and Joseph Wright - did Father Christmas come? Did we catch him?
The Christmas angel by Pirrko Vainio
The twelve days of Christmas illustrated by Louise Brierley
Morris' disappearing bag, a Christmas story by Rosemary Wells
A Christmas tree by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Robert Ingpen - less well known than A Christmas carol
- e-text of A Christmas Carol at the University of Virginia - just in case you can't do without it at Christmas. God bless us every one!
We wish you a merry Christmas - favourite stories and carols illustrated by Donna Green

Society and Culture

The way we are by Margaret Visser
Milton's teeth and Ovid's umbrella by Michael Olmert
Ways of seeing by John Berger - it's not new now; but I remember how it did give me new ways of seeing the first time I read it.
The language of clothes by Alison Lurie - decoding dress and all it signifies and communicates.
Fame in the twentieth century by Clive James - I much prefer his nonfiction to his fiction - his television columns in Visions at midnight and its sequels are also good, whether or not you know the programs he discusses.
The eternal bliss machine by Marcia Seligson - in the early 70s, Marcia set about investigating the rituals of American weddings, with predictably funny results.
Among schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder - a real year in a classroom in an American city - as tidy and untidy, satisfying and unsatisfying as a real year in a classroom is.

Natural History

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
A natural history of the senses by Diane Ackerman
The beauty of the beastly - I've mislaid the author's name, but this is a collection of her columns describing and to an extent anthropomorphising, various bugs and crawlers.

Food and Cooking

The art of eating by M.F.K. Fisher
- How to cook a wolf
- Consider the oyster
- Serve it forth
- The gastronomical me
- An alphabet for gourmets
Simple cooking by John Thorne - a collection of his newsletters which includes an essay on truly awful recipes giving his alltime best chocolate cake recipe - I'll put the recipe on here someday soon, but it's great. Just don't tell anyone the ingredients.
Jane and Michael Stern - they rescue and present American recipes of the twentieth century, from the classics such as Caesar Salad to my personal favourite (haven't actually made it yet), a wondrous talking point for your next barbecue or Hawaiian night: Flaming Cabbage Head Weenies with Pu Pu Sauce. Brief explanation: hollow your cabbage, install a tin of Sterno (kero or meths or some such flammable fuel?) and light it. The weenies (little boys/small frankfurts) are put on toothpicks and stuck into the cabbage - you choose your weenie and cook it in the flames. The sauce includes mustard, chili and sour cream. Aloha!
- American gourmet
- Square meals
Margaret Visser - an anthropologist of eating customs
- The rituals of dinner
- Much depends on dinner

Books about Children's Books

This collection of titles is not intended to be a thorough reading list for a course, but a group of books about children's lit and its contexts/locations.

How the heather looks by Joan Bodger - in the early 1960s she set out with her family to find the Hundred Aker Wood from Pooh and other locations associated with English children's classics.
Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's trunk by Christine Hardyment - just about Swallows and Amazons
You're a brick, Angela by Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig - about girls' series books by authors like Blyton, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer and Angela Brazil
Animal land by Margaret Blount - the stories focused on animals, such as Wind in the Willows

Always appreciated!

Feedback, information, praise...

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This site is maintained by Ruth Buchanan. All content is copyright Ruth Buchanan 1998 with all rights reserved; copyright not held by Ruth Buchanan is acknowledged where known (refer individual pages and Acknowledgements page). Pleae advise re any discrepancies. Links are included in good faith but with no guarantees - please advise re any broken links.

Page created 18 January 1998 and most recently updated 18 January 1998.

	FAVOURITE BOOKS
An idiosyncratic annotated list with links

Classic Children's Books	Aust. Children's Classics	Satisfying Fiction
Fairytales	Fantasy Fiction	Literary Fiction
Auto/Biography	Travel Nonfiction	Reference and Language
Essays and Collections	Crime Fiction	Teenlit
Picture Books	Christmas Books	Society and Culture
Natural History	Food and Cooking	About Children's Books