This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about books that conjure up happy memories, and I’m sure I can find plenty of those! Let’s have a think.
- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte well for Jane all in all, but still; I often read this while I was curled up on the sofa under my high sleeper bed, with a sheet down over the opening, so I had much the same effect, without the less cosy follow-up.
- Martin the Warrior, by Brian Jacques.
I loved this — and indeed all the Redwall books — so much, I read them over and over. I wonder if they’re easy to acquire in ebook, and whether the Suck Fairy has visited. - Five on a Treasure Island, by Enid Blyton.
Can I endorse Blyton as a person? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy the heck out of her books as a kid? Yup! I remember reading them in all kinds of circumstances, including reading the Malory Towers books one week when I was staying with Nanny (Dad’s mum). - The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper.
I read this whole sequence over and over again, and shared it with my now-wife, when I was in my teens.
Also, the BBC radio adaptation from when I was a kid (not the more recent one) scared me silly, but is also really well done. I remember listening to it while doing foil engraving kits (stuff like this) as a kid, and also listening to it while crocheting when I re-found it in some mp3 files online in my twenties.
I also remember fuming at my sister for years for losing one of the tapes Dad recorded it off the radio onto, which meant I couldn’t listen to it again until someone found me archived mp3s much later! Sorry, Squirtle. - The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
There are a lot of happy memories associated with this for me: Mum telling me about it after I read The Hobbit, before she thought I was old enough to understand it properly. Reading it at my grandparents’ sat in the shower room (long story, discussed here). Listening to the BBC radio adaptation with my sister, lying on our beds at my grandparents’ house. Rereading it as a student, because I was studying it. (Contrary to the stereotype people bandy about, I’ve never found that analysing a genuinely good work of literature spoils it for me.) Finding tiny pocket-size copies in Amsterdam, and my wife buying me them for our first wedding anniversary (because that’s the “paper” anniversary). - The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison.
Another one I’ve read over and over again, often with my wife, but also with anyone else I could get to sit down long enough. - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke.
The first time I read this, I had it in my bag as I was going to lectures, in my first year — maaaaybe my second — of my degree. I kept going to the library during the gaps between lectures (which were often a couple of hours: a bit annoying to go home, but long enough to need some occupation) and devouring it. I devoured it again some years later, and it was just so satisfying. And I did really love my time at Cardiff University, in general. - Fadeout, by Joseph Hansen.
A university friend wrote her dissertation partly on the Brandstetter books, and I ended up really tempted to read them too (I caught my interest in vintage crime fiction in the same class she got interested in queerness in detective fiction). So I did. In great big gulps. - The Scum Villain’s Self Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
This was my first danmei! And the first time I read it was on holiday in Bath with my wife for a long weekend. I was so confused! But the books sucked me in, and I remember reading volume three/four while at my parents’ house for a while, and eagerly sending my wife updates on the plot, ahaha. - The Starlight Barking, by Dodie Smith.
I remember reading this over and over, just so wrapped up in the weirdness of it. I only knew the first book from the Disney movie, but this was… something else. Oddly enough, the friend who wrote her dissertation partly on Brandstetter also remembered this: each of us had never met anyone else who’d read it!
Some of these were predictable choices for me — but I like to think there were some surprises too!
I reread Jane Eyre a few years ago and enjoyed visiting her world again.
I remember enjoying it very much, though honestly the opening sticks with me the most — that and “Reader, I married him”, of course.
I feel like my reading experience with Jane Eyre was very different from everyone else’s. It seems as though everyone loves it, and I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I read it so many years ago, and I don’t remember everything that happened.
Here’s my TTT for the week: https://readbakecreate.com/bookish-memories-book-tag-2026-edition/
I don’t really think everybody loves it; I know that I was the only one in my class who liked it at all when I read it in school, for one! But if you don’t really remember it, that won’t help.
I feel inspired now to read more Dodie Smith. And more of the Redwall series too!
I have several of her adult novels still to read! I’ve had them hanging around for a while…
I’ve lost count of how many time I’ve read The Goblin Emperor too, but it’s always a comfort.
Definitely. Maybe it’s time for a reread for me…
Jane Eyre had been on my TBR for such a long time now! With your description it seems like it would be such a good fall book.
The opening definitely is! Or maybe a touch more wintry, in the wet UK winter sort of way… but either way, the opening feels quite apropos for the time of year.
I love your sharing of all these happy memories <3 Books are so much to people, even more than *just* the stories within them, which are a whole world unto themselves
Definitely. I remember exactly what I was reading at various key points in my life!
100%! Which also makes it even harder to get rid of books, because I’m so sentimental lolol
Haha, I mostly keep a limited number, but there are definitely some that will never go anywhere.
I’m envious of your restraint. I’m over here creating my own library in a one-bedroom apartment…. LOL
I mean, I do have something like seven bookcases!
!!! okay I take back what I said lolol. Now I’m envious of your bookcases!!
Hahaha, when we were moving we measured every house we looked at to fit in as many bookcases as possible!
yesssssss that is the kind of dedication we love!!!
My dad actually drew up detailed floor plans and scale versions of our furniture so we could lay everything out, haha.
That’s amazing. I strive to be that organized!
Sometimes I think I HAVE to reread a book and I usually make it happen. Then sometimes I realize I will not need to reread a book again when I’m in the middle of it. Like my need has somehow been satisfied. Books talk to us from the shelves don’t they?
Anne@HeadFullofBooks recently posted…TTT: Books that Conjure Up Happy Memories
Yeah, that’s an interesting insight, I’ve had that too!
With Redwall, the only Suck Fairy visitation is probably firstly, that they get *very* formulaic and as an adult that can be boring, when as a child it was soothing; and secondly, that it’s easy to overthink it into a bioessentialist/racist/eugenicist allegory (absolutely NOT intended in the text, Jacques absolutely wasn’t intending it to be That Deep.) since rats are always bad, mice are almost always good, etc.
HarpGriffin recently posted…A book with rhyming in the title
Yeah, I reckon I’d read one or two only…
Loved hearing your happy memories associated with these books. The only one I’ve read in your list is The Lord of the Rings. I spent summer afternoons the summer I was 13 reading the trilogy.
Olivia recently posted…Weekly Reading Update 10-10-2026
I suspect quite a lot of people have fond memories of reading LotR, haha!