This week’s Top Ten Tuesday post is a Valentine’s themed freebie, so let’s talk about the books I’ve dragged my wife (Lisa) into reading alongside me!

This is not going to be by any means an exhaustive list, because books are one of my love languages, and sharing excitement about books has been a thing we’ve done for over 20 years now — since I was 15. Nor is it a true chart of our relationship through books, because I wouldn’t recommend some of the books we’ve bonded over through the years (like the Rurouni Kenshin manga, the author of which is a paedophile). It’s just ten of the (many) possible books I could choose!

1. The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper.
   The whole sequence, really, and especially The Grey King. The older BBC radioplay version of it (not the recent one) was pretty formative for me, and when I managed to rediscover MP3s of it online in my teens, I ended up rereading the original book, loving it completely, and demanding just about everyone read it too. My now-wife complied, of course, and many’s the conversation we had about the series, imagining what the ending might mean for the characters (does Bran ever remember who he really is?), etc.
2. Harpy’s Flight, by Megan Lindholm.
   We read quite a few of Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm’s books ultimately, but I particularly remember packing up the Ki and Vandien quartet to send it to my now-wife (then living in Belgium) when I was around sixteen. Those book parcels were really important in forming our friendship and early relationship, and in providing something fun to look forward to, to talk about, etc. I remember the start of Harpy’s Flight super vividly, as well. I might reread these books sometime soon!
3. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin.
   And ultimately many of Le Guin’s other books… but it will have started with Earthsea (as it did for me when I was a young teen). Given how much I love Le Guin’s work, and how much this particular one came to mean to me personally (I regularly use Ged’s ultimate decision to turn and face the Shadow as a way to vividly demonstrate my own experience of dealing with anxiety), it’s a good thing we’ve shared this in common for a long time.
4. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin.
   I actually vividly recall sulkily climbing into bed to read this when I had a headache and Lisa wasn’t available online to chat to. I’m pretty sure it also went into one of the boxes of books I sent over to Belgium — the end result of all this was that when we finally moved in together, we had duplicate copies of quite a lot of books. We loved the whole trilogy, and have kept up with Jemisin’s work ever since (actually, Lisa’s probably ahead of me by quite some way).
5. Feed, by Mira Grant.
   This is, on its face, so much more Lisa’s kind of thing than mine that it seems kinda weird that I was the first to read it, but I’m the one who’s more plugged in to discovering books in general, so it isn’t that surprising, and it does plug in to a lot of things that it turns out I find fascinating. (Namely, global pandemics.) We both loved this whole series, and Lisa went on to read more of Grant’s books (and her work as Seanan McGuire). More of it than I have, at this stage!
6. Magic Bites, by Ilona Andrews.
   This was a series we read together more recently. Or rather, I started it, read a few books, went back and started over after accidentally taking a long break, and Lisa got interested enough to ask me for the first book… and swiftly overtook me. Ever since then, when we read the same series, if I’m ahead then Lisa will tell me “choo choo” every so often to indicate that they are steaming ahead and definitely due to overtake me.
7. Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee. This one was a fairly recent one as well, because I remember talking it over, reacting to it, theorising about it, and generally waving our hands around like lunatics about it while walking around a local park. We both keep meaning to reread it, possibly at the same time, because it blew our minds and we’d love to read it again with that insight rereading can give.
8. The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
   When I first read the first volume of this series, I was sat in a hotel room in Bath making confused, amused, concerned and bemused noises at the plot. It was my first danmei, and my first cultivation novel, and in many ways it’s not the greatest place to start because it’s actually an affectionate critique of cultivation novels. Nonetheless, I liked it enough to get the next book, read the whole series, and emoted wildly at Lisa about it while staying with my parents (while they were visiting family in Belgium). I can’t remember if I’d persuaded them to read it by the time they got back, or whether I had to keep begging them with my newfound obsession in mind (I was even watching the donghua!) — but we got there in the end. We’ve read several danmei series together now, but I think we’ll always remember this first one with great fondness!
9. Paladin’s Grace, by T. Kingfisher.
   This isn’t the first Kingfisher book my wife read, actually, but it stands out because we started reading this series in parallel-ish while I was once again staying with my parents, this time while we were in the process of moving in 2025. We’d be meeting up after work or on weekends (as well as constantly chatting online — you mustn’t imagine we’re ever out of communication with each other for long; after 20 years of being together, I think we might stop functioning if we were) and talking about whatever I was reading, and this series was one of them. Clockwork Boys, too.
10. Solo Leveling, by Chugong.
    I’ll end this list with the most recent thing we share! I read the manhwa series last year, and only turned to the light novels when I was sure it was going to be my thing and I’d already finished the manhwa. My burbling about it eventually got Lisa curious, they watched the animation, and now they’re reading the series, just starting as I’m on book eight. Occasionally we’ll both stop to emote about Jinho being precious, and similar such reactions.

There are many honourable mentions that I didn’t have space for in the top ten — like Jo Walton’s Among Others, which felt in my early 20s like a portrait of me in some ways, and My Real Children, which Lisa has always loved especially — but I trust this has painted a picture of a joyously bookish relationship over the years!

I’ll leave you with this little tradition of ours to be jealous over: our Valentine’s agreement, renewed each year, is that Lisa will buy me one book of my choice each month, whenever my whim strikes. The reciprocal agreement (no complaints about daytime naps) hasn’t been activated in a long time, and probably needs to be replaced with the ability to send me to get fancy coffee twice a month or something like that — but aren’t I lucky?!