Best

The (up to) top ten hall of fame for anything I can think of.

The rules:

• Reflects only what I can think of off the top of my head.
• Totally arbitrary.
• I’m right.

Contents

• Books (Fantasy)
• Books (General Fiction)
• Books (Non-fiction)
• Books (Science Fiction)
• Cheeses
• Dunkable biscuits
• Final Fantasies
• Flowers
• Smells
• Spiders
• Teas
• Woods
• Zombie movies

Books (Fantasy)

1. The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch (Rip-roaring fantasy adventure)
2. The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
3. The Song of Achilles - Madeleine Miller (MY HEART)
4. Mistborn (series) - Brandon Sanderson
5. The Emperor’s Edge - Lindsay Buroker
6. Magician - Raymond Feist (dunno if it’s that good, but it was the right book at the right time, and sent me down a long path of reading most of the series)

Books (General Fiction)

1. Down the Garden Path - Beverly Nichols (semi-fictionalised gardening memoir)
2. The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason (general fiction)
3. Out - Natsuo Kirino (thriller)
4. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
5. Shōgun - James Clavell (epic in scope, great story)

Books (Non-fiction)

1. Deep Work - Cal Newport (another ‘right book at the right time’ for me)
2. Things Become Other Things - Craig Mod
3. Bad Blood - John Carreyrou (a classic in the tech hype dumpster dire genre)
4. The Anarchy - William Dalrymple
5. The Wager - David Grann
6. A Short History Of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
7. All the Beauty In The World - Patrick Bringley
8. The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
9. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman
10. Critical Lives: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe - Jeremy Adler

Books (Science Fiction)

1. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood (dystopian sci-fi)
2. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson (where we got the word ‘metaverse’)
3. The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin

Cheeses

1. Roquefort
2. Boursin
3. Brie
4. Brunost
5. Cheddar
6. Goats cheese
7. Wensleydale

Dunkable biscuits

1. Tea biscuits (Botham’s of Whitby)
2. Hobnob (plain)
3. Hobnob (chocolate)
4. Lotus biscoff
5. Bourbon
6. Rich tea
7. Tim tam (for a liberal interpretation of dunking)
8. Custard cream
9. Shortbread

Final Fantasies

1. VIII (eight)
2. IX (nine)
3. VI (six)
4. VII (seven)
5. XV (fifteen)
6. XIII-2 (thirteen two)
7. IV (four)
8. X (ten)
9. XIII (thirteen)
10. XII (twelve)

Flowers

1. Foxglove
2. Dahlia
3. Red rose
4. Orchid
5. Sunflowers
6. Tulip
7. Bluebell

Smells

1. Frying garlic
2. Frying bacon
3. Frying onions
4. Nail polish remover
5. Fresh bread
6. Petrol stations
7. Coffee beans
8. The wood section of a DIY store

Spiders

1. Those cute little jumping spiders
2. European garden spider
3. Money spider

Teas

1. Teh tarik
2. Yorkshire
3. “Tea Pigs” Darjeeling & Earl Grey
4. Lady Grey
5. Assam
6. PG Tips
7. Earl Grey
8. Peppermint
9. Masala chai
10. Camomile

Woods

1. Black walnut
2. Balsa wood
3. Teak

Zombie Movies

1. One Cut Of The Dead
2. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
3. 28 Days Later
4. Død snø
5. Train to Busan
6. Braindead
7. #Alive
8. Zombie Flesh Eaters 2
9. Shaun Of The Dead
10. Overlord