The Top Ten Books I Read Before I Was a Blogger

This weekly meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

I haven't been doing many Top Ten Tuesdays lately (most of the topics haven't interested me much), but as soon as I saw this one I immediately decided to do it. I've only been blogging about books for a few months, and there are tons of books I love that I read before I started blogging, and it makes me sad to know that it might be years before I post about them (if I ever do). So here they can have a little place on this blog. 

10. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. This is my favorite book in the whole world. I want to re-read it this year, so if that happens, I will post about it! 

(Also, I've been toying with the idea of hosting a Les Miserables readalong...would anyone be interested in joining that, or if you're not, do you think other people would be? I've never hosted a readalong so I'm not quite sure if this would be a good option, but I think there are a lot of people who want to read this and are just too afraid. Any opinions?)

9. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I know there are a lot of people who hate this book, but it's another of my long-time favorites. The characters are so complex and so human. This book was so thought-provoking that after I read it, I felt there was no way to name or number the many themes and meanings of this book. 

8. Emma by Jane Austen. Actually, several Austen books. I really like Austen, but I will probably not be re-reading my favorites of hers anytime soon. The only book I've specifically posted about on this blog is Northanger Abbey (which was great, but not my favorite). 

7. Othello by Shakespeare. Well, really any of Shakespeare's plays, but this one is my favorite! I started reading Shakespeare early on (when I was 12 or 13), and I think he really shaped my understanding and love of the classics. 

6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Fantastic book which I might not read again until I have kids. I probably could have written about it all day after I first read it! 

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I didn't like this one quite as much as Wuthering Heights, but it's such a fantastic book with an amazing heroine. 

4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Certainly my favorite non-classic book and since I got it as a gift a few years ago, I would hazard a guess that I've re-read it about once a year since then. I read it whenever I get a little bit sick of reading classics or books for school (which, I admit, does happen occasionally). 

3. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. To be perfectly honest, I really like this book, mainly because I can really identify with Gilbert's writing style and can see myself writing a book sort of like this someday. If I had ever posted about it on this blog, I would have written a great defense for this "chick lit" book (well, I like to think I would have, anyway). 

2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Another of my favorite classics. The characters are incredible, the story is amazing, and the entire book is genius and deserves more credit than it gets. In my opinion. 

1. The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton. This book inspired me, and more than that, it was just so beautiful. Certainly a modern classic in my opinion. Hopefully I'll re-read it again soon and post about it. 

Listing these books makes me want to re-read them all and post about them! (Well, a little confession: I actually did read Eat Pray Love quite recently and was completely silent about it here on the blog. Maybe now I need to write my fabulous defense.) There are a lot of books that didn't make it to this list, too. But I'm sure I'll re-read them all someday, and hopefully then I will blog about them!