 Hi everyone, a big welcome back to my channel. So I love rereading books. I get so much joy and comfort and sometimes even heightened pleasure from rereading books I've previously loved. I honestly wish I reread books even more than I do. So many books, so little time. A lot of my absolute favorite books I have already reread, some of them many, many times. But there are a lot of books that I've totally loved that may have made it onto a best books of the year list. But there aren't necessarily my favorite books ever, and so I haven't prioritized rereading them. I want to address this. So I've recently put together a long list of books I want to reread, including all-time favorite books and other five-star reads as well. Today I thought we could chat about a few of them. I would love to hear your guys thoughts on rereading. Do you enjoy rereading books? And if you do, do you just tend to reread all-time favorite books like me? Or do you also make time to reread random five-star books? Please chat to me down below in the comments and also encourage me to get around to picking these books up again. So starting with an all-time favorite book that has been too long since I last read, we have Tin Man by Sarah Wynman. This is a short literary novel following two men, Ellis and Michael, who have been best friends since they met as boys in Oxford. It is told from multiple perspectives, it jumps around in time, ultimately building up a beautiful picture of these two men and their relationship. I first read this book in 2018. It became an instant all-time favorite of mine, and I have since reread it many times. It was also my first experience of reading Sarah Wynman, and I now totally adore all of her work. This is a very short novel, it's less than 200 pages. It is a perfect little hole. The writing is so sparse and perfectly chosen, there are no wasted words. The characters feel so authentic, their experiences so raw and deep, without Sarah Wynman having to spell out every little detail for you. I have recommended this book to many, many family members and friends. It's one of the most accurate and sensitive depictions of love and friendship I have ever read. It holds such a special place in my heart. It's been a couple of years since I last read it, we need to amend that. Next up, we have The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo. This is a chunky literary novel set in Chicago. It primarily follows a madly in love couple of 40 years into marriage, as well as their four grown-up children, who are all very different from one another, and all going through their own personal struggles. All the while, a long, buried secret threatens to surface and shatter the lives that they have all built. This was one of my favorite reads of 2020. I read it when it was long listed for the Women's Prize. This book is just everything that I love in literary fiction. Family focused, saga following, multiple generations spanning multiple decades, intertwining character threads, a dash of drama and intrigue massively pulls on your heartstrings. This book just felt so genuine and earnest. It's filled with those highly perceptive and tender moments where you feel like the book may have been written for you. To this day, I still cannot believe that this is a debut. Claire Lombardo's second novel is actually coming out later this year, and I'm highly anticipating it. I really want to revisit this one as well, as does my husband actually, who also loved this. Next on the list is Emma by Jane Austen. This is, of course, an 18th century Regency romance and social satire from the Queen herself. It follows the spoiled, rich, and beautiful Emma Woodhouse, who fancies herself to have a talent for romantic matchmaking, which naturally has pretty devastating consequences. If you've been following my channel for any length of time, you will know that I am a massive Jane Austen fan. I have read all of her novels, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are two of my favorite novels ever. I don't know exactly how many times I've read each of her novels, but I'm pretty sure this will be the third time that I read Emma. It's been long enough that I don't remember the reading experience of this one very intimately. I find Emma to be one of the most unique and fascinating Jane Austen protagonists. I personally love her. I love how difficult and flawed and ridiculous she is. Mr Nightly is also one of my favorite Jane Austen heroes. Their relationship is electric. It's top tier. I'm really excited to read this one again and see what I get out of it this time, because there's always something different with Jane Austen, which is really, really special. Next up is The Confession by Jesse Burton. This is a literary novel following two storylines, one in the 1980s when two young women fall in love and move to LA when one of the women's books gets made into a film. The other is set three decades later as a woman tries to discover what happened to her mother, who abandoned her as a baby, and in her search she ends up working for and befriending an old reclusive novelist. This was one of my favorite reads of 2019, and it is to this day my favorite Jesse Burton novel. Like the most fun we ever had, this novel is incredibly me. The characters in here are impeccable. They are so well drawn and so complex and so impressively consistent yet developed across timelines. The different relationships in here are fascinating. The explorations of motherhood and companionship and the relationship we have with ourselves. What always stands out to me about Jesse Burton is the way that she manages to combine these amazing characters with a real driving plot that provides such a forward momentum to the book. This balance is quite rare to find in literary fiction, and I just remember being so impressed while I read. I felt like it delivered on every single front, and I need to experience that again. And finally for today we have North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. This is a Victorian novel telling the story of protagonist Margaret Hale as she is uprooted from her comfortable life in the south of England when her family moved to a northern industrial town. Here Margaret is made aware of the poverty and suffering faced by the mill workers, and she embarks on a complicated relationship with a rich mill-owning man. This was my first ever Elizabeth Gaskell. I read it in 2020. She is now one of my all-time favourite authors, and this is still my favourite book by her. This is pretty much perfect. It delivers on everything you would hope for. It is coming of age social and political commentary and romance all in one. Margaret still stands out to me as being one of the best protagonists I have ever read. She is stubborn and selfless and the journey she goes on in here, the growth. I also generally just find Elizabeth Gaskell's writing to be so readable and just such a delight. She's probably the most readable of any Victorian author to me. I so need to reread this. It's been too long, and I just know it's going to be so good. So there we have it, five amazing books that I really really really need to reread. Please do chat to me about rereads down below. Let me know if you've read any of the books I mentioned. Did you also love them? Thanks so much for watching this video everyone. I appreciate it so so much. I really hope you enjoyed and hopefully I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye.