Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over on that artsy reader girl, which features a different bookish theme every week. This week’s theme is Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time.

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Number 1
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

Why? It was my grandfather who gave me my lifelong love of The Bard. Some of my earliest memories are of me sitting on Pa’s lap, listening to him read from his copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. I understood less than half of what he read, but I found the words beautiful. I now own that very copy of The Complete Works but would give it up in a heartbeat to be back on my Pa’s lap listening to him read.
Goodreads link

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Number 2
The White Bird of Kinship
Richard Cowper

Why? To feel the way these books made me feel again for the first time. They (especially the first one) spoke to my soul.
Goodreads link.

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Number 3
Harry Potter series
J.K. Rowling

Why? To experience the wonder, the joys, the heartaches, the anticipation again for the first time, without the taint of controversy.
Goodreads link.

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Number 4
The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield

Why? To experience the beauty of the writing again for the first time.
Goodreads link.

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Number 5
The Taking
Dean Koontz

Why? Horror books are always at their best on the first read.
Goodreads link.

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Number 6
A Time to Kill
John Grisham

Why? Just like horror books, courtroom dramas are always at their best on the first read. Some of the tension is lost on rereads, when the verdict is already known.
Goodreads link.

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Number 7
Ash Road
Ivan Southall

Why? Just because.
Goodreads link.

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Number 8
Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman
Dorothy Black (Anonymously)

Why? The feels.
Goodreads link.

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Number 9
Nightfall
Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg

Why? As I said earlier, horror is always best on the first read.
Goodreads link.

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Number 10
Pollyanna
Eleanor H. Porter

Why? Nostalgia, mostly.
Goodreads link.

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And now, I’ll leave you with a little teaser from one of my current reads as part of Teaser Tuesday, hosted by The Purple Booker:

“You think I’m guilty,” said Leonard Vole, in a low voice. “But, by God, I swear I’m not! It looks pretty black against me, I know that. I’m like a man caught in a net — the meshes of it all round me, entangling me whichever way I turn. But I didn’t do it, Mr. Mayherne, I didn’t do it!”

— ‘The Witness for the Prosecution’ in The Hound of Death and Other Stories by Agatha Christie, p. 89

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© Adele Walker October 2025
Last updated 14 October 2025