Top ten books I'd like to read for the first time again.

 
So, it is Tuesday again, and it is time for another top ten list. This week was a freebie, so you could pick whatever you wanted. Which is pretty cool. I've wanted to write a blog post about books I want to read for the first time again. Like have selective amnesia and read the book again, but for the first time. So I decided to use this opportunity to do that. So this is a list of ten books (or series) that I would like to read again and not remember how they end.

The Top ten Tuesday meme is as always hosted by the Broke and the Bookish.

The Harry Potter series. So I read Harry Potter when it first came out, because I’m like a Harry Potter hipster, which is the stupidest thing that I have ever said. Yes I read the first one when it first came out (in Norwegian), when I was like 12. And then I read the others when they came out, and after a while I started rereading them whenever a new one was coming out, or when a movie was coming out. So I’ve read them a bajillion times. Read five of them in Norwegian, read them all in English. I know them pretty much by heart. I rush through them to get to my favourite parts. I know what’ll happen. I love them, but I would love to read them for the first time again, to get to know the characters all over. To meet Luna Lovegood again for the first time.

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I think I sort of just want to reread it in general, but it would also be cool to read it without knowing what’ll happen, because I know what’s going to happen in the next books.








The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. So I’ve read it like four times, or had it read to me. And it was read to me the first time (let’s be honest, only time), when I was a kid, and I think secretly I want to be like eight and have my mother read it to my sister and me.







To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It was really freaking awesome. And I want to reread it a hundred times. And I think I want to experience that again. When I read an awesome book I sort of hate that it ends because I can never experience it again for the first time. And I know I’ll love it the second time I read it, but I just want to re-experience the first time. I’m so weird y’all.





The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. Again, I’ve read it a lot of times. I kept rereading the whole series, so I know what will happen and I know what will happen in the rest of the series. And I want to read it without knowing what’ll happen, or who people are, and not knowing they’re going to die and stuff.






The Princess Bride by William Goldman. I didn’t know the whole concept of the book the first time I read it. And it sort of annoyed me. I think I’ll like it when I read it again, but when I read it the first time it annoyed me. A lot because it’s a brilliant adventure story and it doesn’t need all the explaining and that, obviously it is there for a reason, but I didn’t know it would be that way and it bugged me slightly. The story is brilliant though, funny, adventure, pirates, all kind of cool stuff.

Ring of the Slave prince by Bjarne Reuter. I think it’s originally a Danish book, but I always read it in Norwegian. I think I like it because I stumbled upon it because I ran out of things to read. I was very unprepared when I was younger. We went on holiday, I was about 14 I guess, and my friend’s mother had brought some extra books, and I just picked one and I fell in love. It’s basically about a boy named Tom Collins (like the drink) who is about 14 and basically the best liar in the world. I like to think of him as a story-teller. He lives on Nevis in the Caribbean with his English mother and half-Spanish half-sister sometime in the 17th century. He himself is half-Irish and supposedly related to pirate lady Grace O’Malley. He is searching for riches to get away, to buy his mother’s boss’ bar, so she can stop working. Then he finds an African prince and a Spaniard bobbing in the water, and Tom decides to take the prince home. He gets into all kinds of trouble. He becomes a boss on a plantation, a pirate, a sailor, and first and foremost a better story teller. I love it, I’ve read it a bunch of times, I think I’d love to discover it for the first time. Learn to love Tom again. Oh Tom, he’s awesome.

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (I would have to be a child I think). As I have said before looking back on Pippi is slowly ruining my view on my childhood, so I think for me to be able to read it again for the first time I would have to be a child. Because I would be able to just see her for the awesome child she is. And I think I would love that. I loved Pippi when I was a child. She was my hero, because I was a somewhat odd kid, I think I was very focused on reading about girls. It might be because my mother was the person who chose books for me when I was a kid, in that she bought them. And she gave me Pippi Longstocking. She also gave me children’s books by a Norwegian novelist called Anne-Cath. Vestly, who also wrote about girls, one of them had a stay-at-home dad and a working mom (and they were written in the 60s and 70s). I read them in the 90s and it was still sort of odd. And I loved them. I loved Pippi for being clever, strong and independent. And I liked horses, so that was a plus. I think I’d love rediscovering it, or discovering it for the first time.

Any Neil Gaiman novel or anthology. Neil Gaiman writes in a very odd and fun way. And I just want to be able to read one of his novels or anthologies and just discover him again. Discover how he uses language, and how his stories work. They’re so complex and awesome. And I started reading Gaiman because my best friend told me I should, and she is a genius, because she got me to do it. And Neil Gaiman gave Susan (from Narnia) an ending, which made me so happy. I will always love him for that. Also; he has amazing hair.




Matilda by Roald Dahl. This was essentially my favourite book when I was a kid. One time my family went to France for our holiday, and we drove. And I think I was maybe eight or nine years old. I only brought one book, because I had no faith in myself. Because the holiday lasted for 14 days I obviously finished it, instead of finding something else to occupy my brain with, or borrowing a book I just reread it. I think I might have read it four times. By the end I basically knew it by heart, and I still know pretty much all of it. I would love to discover it again, discover this other bookish girl who read all the books in her library. I would love to be able to read it without knowing what’s coming next. Not only did I read it a lot, I really loved it. I fucking loved Roald Dahl when I was a kid. I read the Twits, I read the Big Friendly Giant, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, pretty much all of them. Someone read the Witches to me when I was seven and I was fucking terrified for years. I haven’t been able to read it since, and I don’t think I will, which is childish, obviously, but there is something about that book that creeps me out. I’m a very weird adult.