Some favourite books

A little while ago there was a "challenge" doing the rounds on Facebook, in which, each day for seven days, someone posts a picture of the front cover of a book that's meaningful or influential for them (no words or explanation, just the picture), tags a friend in each post and then the friend has to do it. I wasn't nominated, thankfully, but I do love reading and I thought it would be a nice idea for a shortish blog post. But I can only think of a few books that I could maybe consider influential to me personally, so I'm just going to list some of my favourites (those "influential" ones among them), and I will put a little explanation. And I'm not sticking to just seven, that's far too difficult, haha. So here you go, in no particular order!

Non-fiction:

• Seasons of the Sacred Earth: Following the Old Ways on an Enchanted Homestead, Cliff Seruntine. The author lives with his wife and daughters on a secluded homestead in Nova Scotia, and the book is a series of beautiful accounts of daily life through the seasons. They make a point to live gently on the land and honour the spirits of nature, and have a deep understanding of, connection with, and respect for the natural world. I love it, it's wonderful, and I want their life.
• The New Good Life, John Robbins. An examination of the prevailing money-centred and consumerist culture, and an alternative better life. Written by the son of an American millionaire, who refused his father's fortune and went off to build a tiny wooden cabin and grow his own food, and live a simple life based around values of connection to nature and people.
• Utopia for Realists, Rutger Bregman. A proposal for reconstructing modern society to promote a more productive and equitable life for everybody, with practical ideas and examples of where they are or have been already trialed in places across the world. The core ideas are introducing Universal Basic Income, a 15-hour work week, and open borders.
• Feral, George Monbiot. About rewilding, and how letting nature take its course in some of our landscapes (rather than heavily manage it as we do now) - and, crucially, reintroducing predators we have lost - would be beneficial to the land, wildlife, and humans. Written by an environmentalist and journalist I admire greatly.
• Goddesses in Everywoman, Jean Shinoda Bolen. A classic book on female psychology, which uses seven Greek goddesses as archetypes to explain patterns of behaviour and personality traits in women. Basically every woman has one she identifies most strongly with, and it helps you understand yourself and others more. For me it was Hestia, and it was a sort of 'eureka' moment where it was the first time I felt it was okay to be a quiet, introverted, homely person and that there are others out there like me. There's also a Gods in Everyman.

Fiction:

• The Famous Five series, Enid Blyton. I haven't read these for many years, but I absolutely loved them when I was younger; basically it's a group of kids running round the countryside having adventures.
• Circle of Three series, Isobel Bird. A series of 13 books aimed at teens, about three American high school girls from different social cliques who go through a year and a day study in Wicca, or modern witchcraft. I came across them when I was 12, and they gave me a word to encompass everything I'd loved since childhood, and started my fascination with and love of paganism.
• The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame. I didn't read this till I was 19, which is a shame; it's a classic for good reason. It's just lovely, full of idyllic pastoral English scenes and animal-characters having adventures.
• Anne of Green Gables (and sequels Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars), Lucy Maud Montgomery. Another set of stories I wish I'd known when I was younger; I didn't read these till I was 21. Lovely, idyllic, country/village-life stories of a very imaginative and spirited girl in rural Canada. The 1980s TV-films starring Megan Follows, and the recent Netflix series "Anne with an E", are great adaptations.
• The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley. A fantasy novel, kind of epic; a feminist and pagan retelling of the Arthurian legends, from the point of view of the women.
• Persuasion, Jane Austen. This has grown on me each time I've read it and is now my favourite Austen novel. I don't really have the words to explain why. It's her most moving work. The protagonist Anne Elliot is the eldest of Austen's heroines at 27, the age I am at the moment, and the novel has a more mature feel to it than the others. Many of the literary techniques used were unusual or new for the time, and tell the story in a more internal way, through thoughts and feelings and subtle wordless interactions, rather than through action, and the ending is one of the most romantic in English literature.
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Just utterly delightful and charming and funny and lovely, written as letters between the characters.

Of course there are so many books I've read that I've loved or found fascinating and haven't included. Maybe I'll think of some other post to write about some of them one day. But for now, I hope this has sparked some interest, and some of you will go out and give one or two of these books a read yourself :)

Currently reading: The Night Angel Trilogy, Brent Weeks