Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
My All-Time Favourite Books
16
items These are the books I'd hand you myself — no algorithm, no trending list, just the ones that stuck with me long after I closed them. Some of them are my favourite presents to family and friends.
Sections
3
Books that are written with love and are funny
Books I will always remember and recommend
Book series that I loved
Books that are written with love and are funny
★★★★★ (5/5) — Ages 16+
A volcano closed the sky. Elena got on the wrong bus. Five hours later she was on a harbour in a village of three hundred people, and a fisherman called Gunnar was asking if she was the vet. She said, "I'm a nurse." He heard yes.
Sixteen years on, he tells one version and she tells another.
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language.
A volcano closed the sky. Elena got on the wrong bus. Five hours later she was on a harbour in a village of three hundred people, and a fisherman called Gunnar was asking if she was the vet. She said, "I'm a nurse." He heard yes.
Sixteen years on, he tells one version and she tells another.
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language.
The Nurse Who Took the Wrong Bus (How I Met My Husband - Series): Interviews by A.C. - by AN NA
★★★★ (4/5) — Ages 16+
She wouldn't learn Portuguese. He couldn't. They married in it anyway. Rosa came to Lisbon to feed her granddaughter. Hiroshi came to keep a promise. Neither of them came to learn Portuguese, and in a beginners' class in Lisbon, they didn't.
She was sixty-four and had cooked forty thousand meals. He was sixty-six and had a room, a coat and a photograph. He said "não percebo". She sent a lasagne. Eight years on, a student with a notebook sits at their table and tries to give their story a...
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language.
She wouldn't learn Portuguese. He couldn't. They married in it anyway. Rosa came to Lisbon to feed her granddaughter. Hiroshi came to keep a promise. Neither of them came to learn Portuguese, and in a beginners' class in Lisbon, they didn't.
She was sixty-four and had cooked forty thousand meals. He was sixty-six and had a room, a coat and a photograph. He said "não percebo". She sent a lasagne. Eight years on, a student with a notebook sits at their table and tries to give their story a...
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language.
The Two Who Failed Portuguese Together (How I Met My Husband - Series): Interviews by A.C. - by AN NA
★★★★ (4/5) — Ages 16+
Two mothers. Fifty years of letters. One fruitcake that could not be posted. In 1971, a schoolgirl in Finland and a schoolgirl in Lagos were given each other's addresses by a pen-friend scheme. They wrote for the next fifty years. Somewhere around 20...
In February 2005, Tunde's mother sent him to Finland with a cake that could not be posted. Aino's mother sent Aino to the airport to collect a parcel. The parcel was him.
Twenty-one years on, a student with a notebook sits at their kitchen table by the lake and tries to give their story a score.
How I Met My Husband: interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other’s language.
Two mothers. Fifty years of letters. One fruitcake that could not be posted. In 1971, a schoolgirl in Finland and a schoolgirl in Lagos were given each other's addresses by a pen-friend scheme. They wrote for the next fifty years. Somewhere around 20...
In February 2005, Tunde's mother sent him to Finland with a cake that could not be posted. Aino's mother sent Aino to the airport to collect a parcel. The parcel was him.
Twenty-one years on, a student with a notebook sits at their kitchen table by the lake and tries to give their story a score.
How I Met My Husband: interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other’s language.
Arranged by Airmail (How I Met My Husband - Series): Interviews by A.C. - by AN NA
★★★★★ (5/5) — Ages 16+
He came to sell sunflower seeds. His Spanish had other plans.
September 1974. A Dutch seed salesman walks into a farm office in Andalusia with one memorised sentence, and gets it wrong: "I have come to sell the sun."
Behind the ledger sits Carmen, twenty years old, her father's first line of defence, and she answers without looking up: "The sun is not yours."
He came back every season for four years.
Nearly fifty years later, a student with a notebook arrives at a farmhouse that is never quiet, to interview a couple, and finds a widow, three children, seven grandchildren, two dogs, and an empty chair that nobody explains. It doesn't matter that h...
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language. Every book stands alone. Start with any of them.
He came to sell sunflower seeds. His Spanish had other plans.
September 1974. A Dutch seed salesman walks into a farm office in Andalusia with one memorised sentence, and gets it wrong: "I have come to sell the sun."
Behind the ledger sits Carmen, twenty years old, her father's first line of defence, and she answers without looking up: "The sun is not yours."
He came back every season for four years.
Nearly fifty years later, a student with a notebook arrives at a farmhouse that is never quiet, to interview a couple, and finds a widow, three children, seven grandchildren, two dogs, and an empty chair that nobody explains. It doesn't matter that h...
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language. Every book stands alone. Start with any of them.
The Man Who Sold Her the Sun (How I Met My Husband - Series): Interviews by A.C. - by AN NA
Books I will always remember and recommend
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 17+
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in a remote Italian monastery in 1327, uncovering forbidden books and dangerous secrets.
Dense, brilliant and genuinely gripping once it finds its rhythm — dark academia before the term existed.
A Franciscan friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in a remote Italian monastery in 1327, uncovering forbidden books and dangerous secrets.
Dense, brilliant and genuinely gripping once it finds its rhythm — dark academia before the term existed.
The Name of the Rose - by Umberto Eco
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 16+
A nun, a Swiss Guard captain and an archaeologist follow a trail of ancient trials through Dante’s Purgatory to find who is stealing relics of the True Cross.
A twisty, globe-trotting puzzle thriller with far more real history than most.
A nun, a Swiss Guard captain and an archaeologist follow a trail of ancient trials through Dante’s Purgatory to find who is stealing relics of the True Cross.
A twisty, globe-trotting puzzle thriller with far more real history than most.
The Last Cato - by Matilde Asensi
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 13+
A brilliant child is recruited into a military academy in space to train for a war against an alien species — and the games aren’t as harmless as they seem.
A genuine sci-fi classic with a gut-punch of an ending.
A brilliant child is recruited into a military academy in space to train for a war against an alien species — and the games aren’t as harmless as they seem.
A genuine sci-fi classic with a gut-punch of an ending.
Ender's Game - by Orson Scott Card
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 17+
A sweeping, magical-realist saga following four generations of the Trueba family through love, politics and upheaval in an unnamed Latin American country.
Lush, ambitious storytelling from one of the great voices of magical realism.
A sweeping, magical-realist saga following four generations of the Trueba family through love, politics and upheaval in an unnamed Latin American country.
Lush, ambitious storytelling from one of the great voices of magical realism.
The House of the Spirits - by Isabel Allende
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 17+
A serf’s son rises from poverty to help build Barcelona’s Santa Maria del Mar cathedral, against a backdrop of medieval injustice and ambition.
A sweeping historical epic in the same tradition as The Pillars of the Earth.
A serf’s son rises from poverty to help build Barcelona’s Santa Maria del Mar cathedral, against a backdrop of medieval injustice and ambition.
A sweeping historical epic in the same tradition as The Pillars of the Earth.
Cathedral of the Sea - by Ildefonso Falcones
★★★★★ (5/5) — Ages 14+
Narrated by Death itself, a young girl in Nazi Germany finds solace in stealing books.
Devastating and life-affirming at once — one of the most loved heartbreak books ever written.
Narrated by Death itself, a young girl in Nazi Germany finds solace in stealing books.
Devastating and life-affirming at once — one of the most loved heartbreak books ever written.
The Book Thief - by Markus Zusak
★★★★★ (5/5) — Ages 16+
McCourt’s memoir of a poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s–40s Limerick, Ireland, shaped by hardship, loss and his family’s fierce will to survive.
A modern memoir classic — devastating, funny and beautifully written.
McCourt’s memoir of a poverty-stricken childhood in 1930s–40s Limerick, Ireland, shaped by hardship, loss and his family’s fierce will to survive.
A modern memoir classic — devastating, funny and beautifully written.
Angela's Ashes - by Frank McCourt
Book series that I loved
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 16+
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language. Every book stands alone. Start with any of them.
Simple yet beautiful love stories of multicultural couples. You smile, you laugh, and sometimes you cry.
How I Met My Husband is a series of interviews with couples who fell in love before they could speak each other's language. Every book stands alone. Start with any of them.
Simple yet beautiful love stories of multicultural couples. You smile, you laugh, and sometimes you cry.
How I Met My Husband Series: Interviews by A.C. - by AN NA
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 12+
The full trilogy — Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass — following Lyra across worlds in a story about knowledge, freedom and growing up.
One of the most acclaimed fantasy trilogies ever written, for readers of any age.
The full trilogy — Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass — following Lyra across worlds in a story about knowledge, freedom and growing up.
One of the most acclaimed fantasy trilogies ever written, for readers of any age.
His Dark Materials trilogy - by Philip Pullman
★★★★ (4/5) — Ages 10+
The four-book series (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath and The Colour of Revenge) about a family who can read characters out of books and into the real world.
A love letter to reading itself, wrapped in a genuinely gripping fantasy adventure.
The four-book series (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath and The Colour of Revenge) about a family who can read characters out of books and into the real world.
A love letter to reading itself, wrapped in a genuinely gripping fantasy adventure.
Inkworld Series by Cornelia Funke (4 Books)
★★★★½ (4.5/5) — Ages 16+
Five sweeping novels set in and around the fictional English town of Kingsbridge, from the Dark Ages to the Industrial Revolution, beginning with the building of its great cathedral.
Epic historical storytelling at its most addictive: ambition, faith and power across the centuries.
Five sweeping novels set in and around the fictional English town of Kingsbridge, from the Dark Ages to the Industrial Revolution, beginning with the building of its great cathedral.
Epic historical storytelling at its most addictive: ambition, faith and power across the centuries.
Kingsbridge series - by Ken Follett
★★★★★ (5/5) — Ages 9+
An orphaned boy discovers he’s a wizard and is whisked off to Hogwarts, a magical boarding school hiding secrets of its own — across seven books.
The series that made a whole generation fall in love with reading, and still magical on every reread.
An orphaned boy discovers he’s a wizard and is whisked off to Hogwarts, a magical boarding school hiding secrets of its own — across seven books.
The series that made a whole generation fall in love with reading, and still magical on every reread.
The Harry Potter series - by J.K. Rowling