#3: Villette

A female friend once told me that girls either love or Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. They cannot love "both Brontës". (Which makes me feel a little bit sorry for poor Anne, who's always the forgotten one; but sadly, having never read her, I cannot comment on the quality of her books.) I'm not sure if the Brontë rule applies to males. I suppose it's rare enough for a guy to read any Brontë that no-one's ever taken the time to make a rule for us.

I'm not sure what the rule would look like if someone did create it. I've read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I liked Wuthering Heights and really liked Jane Eyre. But I loved Villette, and it's to that less commonly read masterpiece that my heart truly belongs.

Although I'm not trying to order the books in this list, I suspect Villette would be in my Top 5 books, perhaps higher. It's certainly one of the first books I think of when I list my favourites. I first read it in my fourth year at University, my Honours year, in a subject on Victorian fiction. I was skeptical. I had only read Wuthering Heights at the time, and, having liked it, doubted I could be all that fond of Charlotte. How wrong I was. Where Emily is gothic, melodramatic and largely implausible, Charlotte captures humanity almost perfectly - and her characterisations are definitely at their most refined here. Lucy Snowe, the heroine, is the sort that you fall absolutely in love with. She is enigmatic, and quite emotionally complicated, but what Brontë (Emily, Charlotte or probably even Anne) heroine isn't complicated? They were complicated girls. Lucy is lonely, and yet chooses loneliness because it brings with it a kind of independence. And yet she longs to love, and be loved, and we long for her to be loved, and we love her. And yet... she longs to determine her own life, and we feel her pain. And yet... she hates drawing attention to herself, but seems constantly like something within her is just bursting towards the surface.

This isn't a clear-cut book, and I suspect it isn't for everyone. But I felt for Lucy at every moment of the book; felt all her happiness, and her loneliness, and her hope, and her sorrow. Lucy is an ambiguous heroine, but an unforgettable one all the same. And the ending - I wish I could talk more about the ending. Let it suffice to say that, at a time when books usually only finished with marriage or death, Brontë chose a path never taken before, and the book is all the more wonderful and exquisite for it.

I love this book. Evidently.

#2: Rebecca

Last summer holidays, I started reading Jane Eyre. I'd loved Villette, an underrated gem by Charlotte Brontë, and was at first a bit reluctant to read anything else by her, doubting that it could compare. But I started Jane and liked it a lot. For some reason, though, I lost focus about 150 pages from the end - probably got distracted by a million and one other books to read, as always happens. I picked it up again last night, determined to finish it these summer holidays, and am enjoying it again. It makes me think, of course, of Rebecca, which was so clearly inspired by it. And yet, anyone who thinks that Daphne du Maurier's masterpiece is little more than a copy of the Brontë classic is sadly mistaken.

There's so much suspense and tension woven into this brilliantly gothic and deeply Romantic novel, it's almost unbearable at points. Du Maurier writes brilliantly, capturing every emotion - large and small - that her unnamed narrator is capable of feeling. This is one of the most emotionally complex books I have read, and a magnificent exploration of love, jealousy, guilt and compromise. Critics are divided over whether or not this is a feminist novel. I'd rather not comment. But it's a deeply feminine novel, a book that allows the female perspective to flourish where the world of its time might have been more inclined to see things from the man's position.

This is much more than a minor romance. This is a book of great depth and sophistication. I can't believe that my favourite director was able to make such a botch of adapting this novel for the screen - a book that really should have been so suited to his values and style. But there were no doubt constraints on him that he couldn't get past, despite having the lovely Joan Fontaine in the lead role - a great bit of casting in an otherwise lacklustre film. Certainly he had to change the incredibly ambiguous ending, one of the best aspects of the novel, but not something that the film industry of the day tolerated. But, where the film contracts, reduces and ultimately restricts the storyline, the original novel flourishes in the imagination long after the final page is read. This is truly an unforgettable read.