It’s hard to define what makes a favourite book, as it is different for everyone. For me, a book deemed ‘my favourite’ is a book that leaves me lost for words, a book that has me staring at my wall at 3 am, overcome with emotions, my thoughts spilling out of me but with no way to express them.
A book that leaves me speechless. A favourite book of mine is a book that leaves me hungry for more, a book that makes me want to read it, analyse it and experience it again and again and again. A book that I devore like a wild animal, one that makes me forget about all my priorities, one that I pull all-nighters for, staying up till all hours of the night just to wake up early the next day to read, starting the cycle again.
A favourite book is one that I can’t stop thinking about, one that takes over my thoughts and that I obsess over when I close my eyes at night. I dream it and experience it. I see the characters and the world. I’m in the story. It’s a bit dramatic, I know, but it’s the truth. This is what a favourite boom does to me. It gets me feeling and thinking about all these things. A favourite book is a once-in-a-lifetime book that rewires my brain and changes my thoughts, ideas and the whole trajectory of my life.
Out of the trajectory of my entire existence, I have only read thirteen books that are ‘worthy’ to be called my favourite books. These books, dare I say, are masterpieces, absolute perfection destined to be in the stars.
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
The Bell Jar is centred around our main protagonist, Ester Greenwood, a college student from Massachusetts who travels to New York to work at a magazine for a month. Ester Greenwood dreams of becoming a poet. But her time in the big windy city is unfulfilling as she struggles with issues of identity and societal norms. The novel follows Ester during a six-month period. It is believed that the plot of the book closely follows the events in Plath’s life.
The Handmaid’s Tale - Marget Atwood
“When we think of the past, it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.”
The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel set in a version of the United States that has been overthrown by religious fundamentalists. Under the militaristic regime of the Republic of Gilead, Women are stripped away from all their rights and are left with nothing. They’re not even allowed to be called by their own names. In Gilead, women don’t have any rights over their own autonomy.
Misery - Stephen King
“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he’ll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels.
A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Art consists of the persistence of memory.”
Misery by Stephen King is centred around Bob Sheldon, a famous author. When suddenly he gets into a horrific car accident, he ends up being held hostage by his ‘number one fan.’
Emma - Jane Austen
“I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.
You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.”
Emma Woodhouse is a precocious young woman who sees herself as a matchmaker. Emma is extremely headstrong and self-satisfied and greatly overestimates her match-making abilities.
Emma vows that once she matches Harriet, her friend, she will stop matchmaking and playing with people’s feelings for good when, this time, her matchmaking goes wrong.
If We Were Villans - M.L. Rio
“You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.”
If we were villans, it centres around seven friends who are fourth-year theatre students at a prestigious university. When a series of events happen, a series of tension and disputes lead to one of them getting murdered. Oliver Marks is our main protagonist.
Oliver has just gotten out of jail for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he is realised, he meets up with Dectative Colborne, a retired cop who put him in prison. Colborne wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
Babel An Arcane History - R.F. Kuang
“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes.
So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
Babel is centred around Robin Swift, an orphan from Canton. Robin is taken from Canton, his home, and brought to live in London by the mysterious Professor Lovell.
There, he trains for years, learning Latin, ancient Greek and Chinese in preparation to enrol in Oxford’s University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel.
The Secret History - Donna Tart
“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
The Secret History by Donna Tart is centred around an elitist group of tightly-knit friends who are in college studying ancient Greek in college. The Secret History is narrated by Richard Papen, who is a new member of the group. Things start to go wrong when one of their classmates and friends, Bunny, is murdered.
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