Favourite Reading List

I have over 10,000 books of all kinds on my shelves, so there are a few to choose from, and people are always asking me for recommendations. If I had to pick a smallish list of my extremely personal absolute must-haves for all ages, they would be these (with the whys). The criteria had to be that they stuck in my head (some for nearly 40 years); that they made me laugh, cry, or lodged themselves in my heart; and that I could never be bored reading them however many times I did it.