BOOKS I’LL ALWAYS COME BACK TO

I discovered books from an early age and I don’t remember not reading since. There were books that I enjoyed, books I fell in love with, books I couldn’t finish and there were the ones that changed me, the special stories I will always come back.

GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

This must be the first novel that made me see everything like I was watching a movie. It all revealed in front of my eyes with every sentence. This book is the most popular american novel, set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War. It is one unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed.

I am not ashamed to say that ever since I dreamed of becoming as strong, independent and determined as Scarlett O’Hara and also of finding that arrogant but strong real man that is Rhett Butler.

This is my current re read and I think I will continue with the sequel, SCARLETT

THE BAD GIRL by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This book has a slow start but it sucked me right in and made me love, cry, scream in despair and frustration all at once.

It is not the typical boy meets girl, girl falls in love, they go through life together and discover they are made for each other, get married and live happily ever after. On the contrary. This is a love story spread throughout a life time and one told from the perspective of a man who loved a woman in all her moments in life.

When I finished this book I closed it and felt the insane desire of starting it all over again. It is a masterpiece and a book I will always recommend

GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens

I read the book and seen the movie and I can tell I am obsessed with both. First it was the book and I got addicted.

Great Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith’s family. He dreams of becoming a gentleman. One day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of “great expectations”.

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

If there was ever a novel that shows us the dangers of false perceptions then it’s Great Expectations . Pip is such a fool; he constantly misjudges those around him, and he constantly misjudges his own worth. This has lead him down a road of misery because the person who held the highest expectations for Pip was Pip himself. But, in spite of this, Pip does learn the error of his ways and becomes a much better person, though not before hurting those that have the most loyalty to him. 

This is more than just a story of love. It is a story about the power of loyalty and forgiveness; falsehoods and misperceptions but also a story of deep sadness. it is about how the folly of youth can alter your life for ever. It is an extraordinary novel that I will always come back to.

A LITTLE LIFE by Hanya Yanaghihara

I read this book in a low point in my life and it touched me. Laying on a hospital bed after a near death experience leaves you with lots of time in your hands. I remember those moments like it was yesterday and I remember this book helping me not losing my mind.

“A little life” is a heartbreaking story that follows the lives of four friends from college to midlife.. The author focuses on Jude, a brilliant lawyer and a mathematician with a mysterious past and terrible health issues caused by the sexual, physical and mental abuse he was submitted to as a child.

It is full of pain and love, ambition and destruction of self, hope and loss. The detailed descriptions place you in a strange state of mind, almost feeling the character’s struggle with his demons. It is a brilliant read that can also drive you mad, consume you and take over your life. It is dark and disturbing but is has so much beauty in it.

MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden

This is a seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, which tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan’s most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha – dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.

It is written splendidly and I thought it is a true story. I couldn’t put it down. I googled the word geisha, I googled everything related to this book trying to find out just how much it’s true. The details and the terrors got me addicted to this book and I can say I feel jealous of every person who reads it for the first time. It has an incredible depth and it sucked me right in.

NORWEGIAN WOOD by Haruki Murakami

Another story that got me hooked from the beginning.

‘This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it’s also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows’ – Independent on Sunday

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki.

Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire – to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.

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I know there are so many other books I would gladly re read but these are the ones close to my heart. Worth mentioning now are Where Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

My mother the Psychopath by Olivia Rayne

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

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WHAT ARE YOUR GO TO BOOKS, THE ONES YOU WOULD ALWAYS COME BACK TO?