Books are powerful things. They record history, inspire travel, reveal art, shape governments and make you laugh or cry or both.

Without them, life would be vastly different and quite lacking in their absence.

We all have a story that has impacted us and left us changed from the reading. A special book that may have influenced you, captured your heart and imagination or served as flint to light a flame to set you on a path to discovery.

Epic fantasy trilogies, horror, comedy, sci-fi, fact, fiction, mystery, and romance, auto-biographies: the choice is vast!

Hundreds of books from hundreds of different authors have passed through my hands, some I have adored, others I’ve hated! They have challenged me, taught, guided, delighted and horrified me – as they are meant to. Some were so clever I didn’t think I was worthy to hold them in my hands, while others were so mind-numbingly boring I threw them in disgust into the bin (some even made it into the fire pit!) as they were such a waste of time.

Many years ago, I read Carla Coulson’s “Italian Joy”, and it made my heart sing! All I wanted in the world was to be riding on a Vespa through the streets of Rome, with the wind in my hair, while calling “Ciao!” to whoever would listen. This book lived up to its name and was pure joy and ease to read! For anyone with a love of travel and all things Italian, this book entices you into its pages with glorious photos, beautiful typeface, handwritten comments and conversation. This was a woman treading her own path, speaking to my heart.

For me, though, it was the books by Jane Austin that captured my heart right from the start. Her beautiful imagination and strong female characters, rallying against the male-dominated society of the 1800s, effortlessly imprinted the importance of being a strong individual, having ideals and standards and living by them, without me even realising. Born way back in 1775, she truly was ahead of her time. I devoured her books and have read them over and over throughout my life, every time soaking up her stories like it was my very first dance with them.

“Pride and Prejudice” was my first taste of Austin. My Great-Uncle Norman gave me this book. Hard-cover, carefully wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It was the fattest book I had ever had, and I was far too young to read it! I think I was about five years old, but I treasured it and was impatient for the day I could understand what it said.  Eventually, after several years, I was able to read a little bit, then some more, and finally got through the whole thing.

After that, I was hooked and quickly expanded my Jane Austin experience reading “Sense & Sensibility”, followed by “Emma”, “Mansfield Park” and “Northanger Abbey”. But for me, “Pride and Prejudice”, is always the first old friend to call me back to her.

My daughter and I have both always felt we were born in the wrong place and at the wrong time in history. I guess that comes somewhat from being “old souls”… I wonder where our “old souls” came from… The books we read? Possibly.

Emily Brontë’s dark “Wuthering Heights” frustrated me with Heathcliff’s cruelty and obsession, yet I couldn’t put it down.

Charlotte Brontë’s, “Jane Eyre” spoke to me in a similar way to Jane Austin’s novels.

Of course, I loved the poems by Emily Dickenson and Louisa May Alcott’s glorious and mischievous stories of “Little Women”, “Little Men”, “Jo’s Boys” and “Good Wives” (just to name a few!). These books delighted and transported me back through time to another world. Yet they all had something in common. The constant thread of strong-willed women who lived life their way, against society’s expectations.

After having read so many words and pondered sentences constructed in countless ways, you’d think my childhood favourites would be long surpassed and forgotten. They haven’t been, and I don’t imagine they will be. There are no books that have shaped my thoughts or imagination in such a powerful way as Jane Austin and her like, first did.

Just like the female characters they created, these authors were strong, independent, trail-blazers who took chances, worked hard, believed in themselves and created a different life for themselves than what was on offer. They walked their own path. Every one of them. I just love them for it!