 | The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Collins Voyager) by Alan Garner
Buy new: £3.97 / Used from: £0.01 Very strange and dark. Deeply rooted in Northern English landscape. No easy conclusions.
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 | The Dark is Rising (Puffin Books) by Susan Cooper
Buy new: £4.72 / Used from: £0.01 VERY British (as opposed to English). Lyrical, strange and haunting (and the subject of a song by Mercury Rev)
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 | The Grey King (Puffin Books) by Susan Cooper
Buy used from: £0.01 Just possibly Cooper's masterpiece. Digging deeper into Celtic myth than Dark. Imagine Kes re-written by Alan Garner with bits of The Wicker Man thrown in.
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 | The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Buy new: £4.37 / Used from: £0.01 OK, a predictable choice, but the mixture of silly humour and dark, brooding menace make this an enduring delight.
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 | Northern Lights: Adult Edition (His Dark Materials) by Philip Pullman
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £0.01 The first and best of the trilogy. Here the storytelling is sharp, deft and compelling. Worth buying for the polar bear showdown alone!
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 | Gowie Corby Plays Chicken (Cascades) by Gene Kemp
Buy used from: £0.01 It may be a little dated (set in late 70's SW England), but this is a wickedly funny tale about a pre-teen rebel who reforms without losing his spark.
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 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) Paperback by J.K. Rowling
Buy new: £4.54 / Used from: £0.01 The best of the series. The tipping point between the lively simplicity of the early novels and the worthy wordiness of the later ones.
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 | I am the Cheese (Puffin Teenage Fiction) by Robert Cormier
Buy used from: £0.37 Very dark and disurbing. Challenging and emotionally draining. Makes most adult literature look sappy and sentimental. Just read this book!
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 | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: AND Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Buy new: £6.29 / Used from: £0.01 This is anarchy. There are no moral lessons in Alice. Every possible figure of authority is mocked, for no other reason than that it's fun to do so.
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 | The Adventures of Binkle and Flip (Happy Days) by Enid Blyton
Buy used from: £0.01 Ms Blyton's finest hour. Not really a book for adults, but it was my favourite as a kid, and this is my list so there! And if you don't like it I'll set the Whistling Biggle-Boggle on you!
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Listmania!
