 | Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) by John Milton
Buy new: £5.47 / Used from: £4.49 The best thing I've read in my entire life, hands down. I did read it as a story, instead of as a poem, but that's his own fault for making Satan so... divine.
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 | The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Patrick O'Brian
Buy new: £98.17 / Used from: £127.72 I've read all 21 books now, and by God, I never thought I'd love historical novels this much. It's honestly difficult to find any sort of flaw at all. O'Brian is a masterful story-teller.
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 | The Lord of the Rings (3 Book Box set) by J.R.R. Tolkien
Buy new: £11.96 / Used from: £7.99 The book that got me reading when I honestly couldn't have cared less.
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 | Mr Midshipman Easy (Classics of Nautical Fiction Series) by Marryat F
Buy used from: £0.93 Absolutely hilarious, but with a nice layer of girtty realism beneath it. I love this book.
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 | This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £0.01 The book that threw me straight into the arms of Darwin. I never stood a chance.
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 | The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett
Buy new: £6.29 / Used from: £0.01 If Patrick O'Brian is a male Jane Austen, can Andrea Barrett then be a female Patrick O'Brian?
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 | Good Omens by Neil Gaiman
Buy new: £5.99 / Used from: £0.01 I may have a crush on Aziraphale. Don't judge me. You cannot stop our love.
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 | Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Thomas Cochrane by David Cordingly
Buy new: £12.50 / Used from: £1.73 I never thought I would come this close to actually fangirling a historian, but there you have it. You can just taste Cordingly's enthusiasm in every sentence.
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 | The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer
Buy new: £10.90 / Used from: £8.49 No one can quite appreciate how dirty this book is if they haven't read it. It's Middle-English filth and hilariously funny. Well worth the effort to read it in the original as well.
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 | Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics) by William Thackeray
Buy new: £6.02 / Used from: £0.40 Took me entirely too long to read, but I enjoyed it a lot. Rebecca is a fantastic character and Dobbin is made out of rainbows and puppies and love.
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 | Moby-Dick: Or, the Whale (Penguin Classics) by Herman Melville
Buy new: £5.96 / Used from: £1.85 I even loved the tangents. Yes, yes, I even loved the tangents.
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 | Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar by Adam Nicolson
Buy used from: £0.01 In the whole sea of books that have been written after the 2005 Trafalgar celebrations, it would be hard to top this one.
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 | Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes
Buy used from: £11.85 I cried like a baby over this book. I kept having to stop mid-paragraph for fear of causing a scene on the train. The most touching biography I've ever read.
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