For a true lover of books, choosing favourites is hard. Do you choose a favourite child? NO! So how are we expected to choose favourite books? Yet this is the number one question I get asked: “What are your favourite books?”

For the purpose of finally putting this question to rest I’ve forced myself to make some decisions here. And now, hopefully, when I get asked this question again I can simply plop this link in your inbox and be done with it (although I guarantee I’ll change my mind within a few weeks). But for now, July of 2020,  here are my top 5 favourite books of all time: Please note: Harry Potter is obviously my favourite, but for the purpose of this post, I will on to others.

I will follow this up with a spotlight on each one for more information, why it’s my favourite, and what I truly think about all the details. But for now take a look at my top 5 favourites and what they’re about:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) – a classic in English literature, Pride and Prejudice was written with great wit and an amazingly strong female heroine. The story follows an unsettling relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of a country gentleman, and Mr. Darcy, the richest man in all of Derbyshire! It’s funny, emotional, and shocking!
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (2011) – The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
3. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (1997) – The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy, Ponyboy Curtis, and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider.
4. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (1961) – For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams.
5. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (2018) – Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. For his 13-year-old daugher, it is a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.