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#TopTenTuesday: Strolling Down A Bookish Memory Lane!

Dini @ dinipandareads18 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Bookish Memories (Share stories of your reading life as a child, events you’ve gone to, books that made an impression on you, noteworthy experiences with books, authors you’ve met, etc. Reminisce with me!)

Oof, I love this prompt but knowing my blabbery-ness, it could also end up being a very long post, though I’ll try to keep each book memory short. If you’ve been on the blog before you’ll know that my memory isn’t the best but there are books and moments that have always stood out to me for one reason or another. It’s funny how some moments feel like they just happened yesterday and these ones feel like that to me! I’ll be going from my youngest memories to my more recent ones in the past few years. So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Shel SILVERSTEIN

Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic were the books that helped me escape the realities of elementary schoolyard bullying. I remember holing up in the deepest stacks in the library with these books feeling safe and very content! These covers and the illustrations are so iconic to me ❤️

THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET

I had to read this for school (can’t remember what year) but I remember how it sparked my interest in writing and made me want to be a writer! I mean, that didn’t last but I remember how inspired I was that I started writing a book in a similar style and I was so proud of it too!

A RING OF ENDLESS LIGHT

I think I read this book in year 8 and I honestly can’t remember what it’s about now but I still remember how much I loved it and how much I connected with Vicky. I think perhaps because at this time I really wanted to be a marine biologist so I loved everything about the ocean, plus, I think this made me wish for a summer romance! 😂

SWEET VALLEY SERIES

Do you remember your first book crush/book boyfriend? I do! It was Todd Wilkins from the Sweet Valley books. I don’t remember that much about his personality now but I do remember I loved the combination of his being sporty and brainy, and sweet and sensitive.

jodi picoult books

I didn’t read much for a couple years in HS but I distinctly remember discovering my first Jodi Picoult at the library and it was like discovering a whole new world of books! I became pretty obsessed with her books and read as many of them as I could get my hands on that year (which ended up being half of her catalogue)!

THE TWILIGHT SAGA

I pretty much stopped reading when I went to uni until my friend told me about Twilight and then the two of us binged the series in like one weekend? We were good at pulling all-nighters at that point so it was easy doing. We were obsessed! So not only did sparkly vampires get me back into reading but this was also my first “buddy read”! 😉

NORA ROBERTS rOMANCE

I was a total noob to the romance genre until I discovered my first Nora Roberts book at a second-hand bookstore when I moved to Cambodia in 2010. LIFE-CHANGING! 😂 I got pretty obsessed with her books and almost bought the store out of their copies (which wasn’t difficult cos there weren’t that many 👀 *cough*)…

THE BLACK MAGICIAN TRILOGY & KINGMAKER, KINGBREAKER series

I randomly discovered these two series when I was living in Norwich and started living in the using the public library. I don’t know how I found them but they propelled me into the world of YA/epic fantasy and then there was no turning back! I can still remember how enthralled I was by these books and how quickly I devoured them!

THE HOBBIT

I was pretty disappointed when I didn’t end up enjoying The Hobbit… But it was the first book I got and read on my first Kindle back in 2012/13, so that was pretty exciting! 😍 It took a while for me to love my Kindle but now I can’t imagine life without it!

killers of the flower moon

I somehow came across this book in 2018 and it immediately piqued my interest. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction because I find my focus strays *very* easily but I surprised myself by how quickly I finished this book: in one night/sitting! It was so freaking good and remains one of my favourite true crime non-fiction reads.

And that’s a wrap from my walk down bookish memory lane! Do you have any books or bookish memories that you remember vividly?

18 thoughts on “#TopTenTuesday: Strolling Down A Bookish Memory Lane!”

  2. I remember reading Tolkien and thinking “I do not understand a single word of what’s written here” LOL so I ended up DNFing. Twilight is the book that got me to discover the blogging community so I’m always grateful to it. Plus, at the time I really did enjoy it. And oh man, Jodi Picoult! She was a staple of my teen reading years.

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  8. Where the Sidewalk Ends brings back some elementary school memories for me, too. I loved that book, but so did everyone else. There was always a line of people waiting to check it out from the library.

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  9. Great list, Dini! The Magicians’ Guild is one I’d really like to cross off my TBR. For all the stick the Twilight books get now – and a lot of the criticism is justified when it’s not aimed solely at mocking something purely because a lot of women and girls liked it – I think they got a LOT of people back into reading.

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  14. I never read Sweet Valley lol but I always liked that those series existed- Babysitters Club, sweet Valley, all those. So much reading for kids to discover!

    It took me a while to love my Kindle too! 🙂

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  16. I remember reading Sweet Valley books and how sort of mature-ish it was to read them. It was also kind of weird because there were topics that I have no clue about.

    Have a lovely day.

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