Reading & Writing

My list of recommended reads:

YA Contemporary:

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (and everything else by Perkins)

Everything by John Green (especially An Abundance of Katherines and The Fault in Our Stars)

Everything by E. Lockhart (Ruby Oliver & Frankie Landau-Banks)
The Georgia Nicholson books by Louise Rennison (Angus, Thongs & Full Frontal Snogging)
Everything by Melina Marchetta (especially Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road)
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King

Good Oil by Laura Buzo

The Princess Diaries Series by Meg Cabot (first three)

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

The Duff by Kody Keplinger
Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein

YA Fantasy and Paranormal:

Harry Potter 1-7 by J.K Rowling

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (and everything else he's written)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stievater

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

YA Dystopia and Sci-Fi:

Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

YA Historical:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Favourite adult (a mix of genres):

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (and the Mistborn series)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Everything by Emily Perkins (especially Not Her Real Name and Novel about My Wife)

Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning

Mercedes Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Favourite adult classic:

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (and The Importance of Being Ernest)

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Pretty much everything by Jane Austen (but especially Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

Great books on writing:

On Writing, by Stephen King

Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Save The Cat by Blake Snyder
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler