I love reading and I love making lists, so I had a lot of fun coming up with this list of some of the best books I’ve read over the past decade or so. I’m pretty selective, so I’ve only included the ones that really moved me in some way; the ones I found truly touching, thrilling, terrifying, hilarious, heartbreaking, or, in the case of the last section, aesthetically pleasing. I’ll be updating this list frequently (…I hope!) with new favourites as I discover them 😉

I always love hearing recommendations, so please feel free to tell me some of yours! And if you have strong opinions on any of the books listed here, please share…

CONTEMPORARY

• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• Oryx & Crake – Margaret Atwood
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain
• Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier
• The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• White Oleander – Janet Fitch
• Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
• Ross O’Carroll-Kelly series – Paul Howard
• The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
• Shopaholic series – Sophie Kinsella
• Twenties Girl – Sophie Kinsella
• The Fifth Child – Doris Lessing
• A House in the Sky – Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett
• Sold – Zana Muhsen
• The Book of Awesome – Neil Pasricha
• Perfume – Patrick Suskind
• Adrian Mole series – Sue Townsend
• The Samurai’s Garden – Gail Tsukiyama
• The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters

CLASSIC

• Emma – Jane Austen
• Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
• Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
• Persuasion – Jane Austen
• Pride & Prejudice – Jane Austen
• Sense & Sensibility – Jane Austen
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
• David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
• Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
• A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Passage to India – E. M. Forster
• A Room with a View – E.M. Forster
• One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
• Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
• The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
• Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
• Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
• Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
• 1984 – George Orwell
• Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
• The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
• East of Eden – John Steinbeck
• The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
• Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
• Native Son – Richard Wright

FASHION/LIFESTYLE/TRAVEL

• How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are – Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline De Maigret, and Sophie Mas
• Style – Lauren Conrad
• The One Hundred – Nina Garcia
• What to Wear for Every Occasion – Nina Garcia
• The Cities Book – Lonely Planet
• The Travel Book – Lonely Planet
• Domino: The Book of Decorating – Deborah Needleman and John Middleton Murry, Jr.
• Cupcakes & Cashmere – Emily Schuman
• The Cheap Chica’s Guide to Style – Lilliana Vazquez
• The Body Shape Bible – Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine
• Who Do You Want to Be Today? – Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine