May or may not be surprising, but utterly eclipsing the amount of time I've spent reading books is the amount of time I've spent listening to audio-dubs of fanfiction (and almost exclusively My Little Pony fanfiction at that). To those of whom outside of the loop (ie. almost everybody), that might sound absurd given the typical [albiet deserved] reputation fanfic tends to have; but I can assure you that at least this chasm has a far greater number of gems in that rough than any other explicit fandom to my knowledge. I wish I remembered the video, but whatever it was, I'd agree with a [paraphrased statement] of theirs in that due to how things panned out regarding the earlier stages of the mlp fandom (as far as writers went), fanfics tended to have an unusually high quality of writing (relative to what would have been anticipated), which would establish a sort of self-maintaining baseline for most stories...mix that with a strong bit of fervor in the community and you've stumbled into a recipe for some of the best stories I've ever read/listened to. Perhaps not equally important, but still bearing a heavy load is the quality of the various dub channels who further bring the story to new heights, which granted almost spoils the listeners as it can be a bit harder to go back to reading after hearing such great works...as such for this section I'm going to not only list my various favorite fanfics, but also my favorite dub for that given story.

Fallout Equestria - By: Kkat | Dub: CrazedRambling : Honestly I almost feel like I should give find a special page just for this story alone (or maybe just a full my little pony page?) thanks just how much I love it. To start it off, for any who don't know this is a fanfic that combines the worlds of MLP (season 1) and Fallout in a unique and astounding mixture falling in at a "humble" 620 thousand word count. I won't bother taking up too much room to gush about it here, but despite the flaws it has-I can honestly say that I'm basically entirely blind to them. While at the time of first going through the fic, I had definitely really enjoyed Fallout 3 & New Vegas, I wouldn't have considered myself that much of a fan of them (specifically in that I enjoyed them and knew a decent bit, but I'd only played each of them once or twice and I'd never really looked into any content surrounding them outside of the games themselves). But I had definitely been very much so into MLP and its community, so when I finally got around to going through this fic, it managed to place a very strong lock in my mind, as I had been captured by all the various things I could pick out-both subtle and not-of references or interpretations of the games into the world; not just as drag and drop mind you, but a proper melding into something new and more fitting. Plus my already heavily established love of darker fics having cemented a partiality in favor of this long before I'd even considered going through it. Capping the story off for that little bit of extra sugar on the cream, is the dub by CrazedRambling. It's fairly simple, not really having any sound effects nor music-but I think it actually works really well. Something something simplicity is king or whatnot. Not to disparage any of the productions I love that do utilize both of those things, but truthfully (biased as it may be), I really can't imagine a world in which the dub would be improved by extra post-productions like that. Nonetheless, looking back on things I've gone through the full dub twice (and will definitely repeat more in the future), as well as getting horribly blue-balled by CrazedRambling's disappearence partway through the enticing Project Horizons (which I still need to finish). Overall, while there are technically better written fics, or more personally impactful towards my life, I think it'd be a crime to do anything than list this as my number 1 fic & dub alike.
Empty Horizons - By: Goldenwing | Dub: Skijaramaz - Tone Shift : By all accounts this is a bit of a newer fic & dub seeing as how I had to sit and listen to each episode as it came out, appose to binging it as I normally would, however despite that I managed to stay entirely enthralled-no matter how much time would pass between each. That alone seems a strong testament to myself as to how much I really enjoyed this. An equestria drowned in a supernatural ocean filled with all sorts of abominable monsters and airships who claim the skys between fuedal floating islands long after the princesses have disappeared into god-hood...I mean, how could I resist (not that I knew any of that going in)? Suffice to say, I think this fic really hits the nail on the head for something in a similar realm to FoE, a darker world with adventure and an interesting plotline with who knows what's to be found along the way! It almost feels a crime that it took so long for this to come to be-and to come to my attention, as unsurprisingly after all these years (and the shows end), things have certainly felt a little slower and on the front of new stories (though perhaps thats just me kind of falling out of the fandom)...regardless of that though it's been neatly wrapped into an astounding dub by Tone Shift, whom I've never actually heard of (to my knowledge) prior to this dub-and what way to get put on my radar! He's rapidly earned a spot amongst my top dubbers, a set of thrones that had been relegated to a duarchy for something around a decade until a few years ago as of writing (has it really been a few years? i could've sworn I was going through this for the first time only a few months ago...).
Integration - By: Raugos | Dub: Thornquill Audiofics : Integration occupies a really cool aspect of fanfics that I think I have a little extra biased towards, that being the ones who are almost kind of head-cannons. Not fully of course as the events of this fic would of course never fly in the actual 'official' FiM universe, but I think it really offers a great alternative that is within the realms of belief enough to not break you out of the FiM world. It's really not a dark fic at all, but its on the lightest edges of such that it still takes on some of the stakes and sense of harshness that really places the setting and characters into situations that make you really get invested and care for everyone as you can feel the pressure they're under (and how theres no guarentee that they'll all be entirely ok). With that sort of tone, setting the entire thing within the bounds of a changeling hive-and as a pony instead of a bug too; well I'd like to thing the appeal there is fairly obvious. Plus add in the motivation of romance and how you actually do have a common sense of just how important the love interest is to the main character, so now you've got a pretty good start that finds opportunity to place its hooks into you without ever alerting you to their presence until you're far too deep to have any ideas nor desires of stopping. Overall a solid fic that kept my attention very well, and as for Thornquill-this much like the previous entry, is the fic that put him on my radar and by extension put a fair few other fics onto my read list-though none that I'll take time explaining on this page...maybe on their own dedicated fanfic page though?
University Days - By: Dawnfade | Dub: Astro Brony : A bit of a stark departure from the previous type of fics listed here, but nonetheless I'd certainly argue this deserves a spot. Back however many years ago now, I use to go out of my room and sit on the basement couch with nothing but my earbuds and an ipad in darkness so thick I'd unironically be unable to even see my elbow or hand infront of my face-where I'd then mess around on Quotev and listen to mlp fanfics-by far the most predominant of which were Octascratch fics (especially dark/tragedy). Naturally it'd come as little surprise then that eventually a few years later that I'd be horribly attracted to University Days, becoming immediatly captivated by the idea of having a longform fic between my two favorite characters (which ironically I think only came to be my favorites BECAUSE of the very fanfics I'd be searching for, a recursively fueling opinion I suppose). I'm not looking to spoil anything here so I can really say that there isn't much to say necessarily other than it very well achieved what it set out for, a great romance story set in a college with all the ups and downs that entails. I imagine it makes sense that I'd fall to romance as being one of my favorite genres, especially as combining it with dark/grimdark oft results in a tragedy tag and by extension makes the events of the story hit much harder and last all the longer in one's mind. Regardless of that though, the dub itself certainly plays on a little bit of my nostalgia bait a bit, as I can definitely recognize the quality isn't the highest (combined with the fact that appearently the original videos/channel is gone and had to be reuploaded via archive), but still I think it holds up well enough and is very easy to get use to after a chapter or two. Either way if you wanted a break from the edgier stuff then I guess this might be a great recommendation?
Autograph - By: RushingAutumnLeaves | Dub: TheLostNarrorator : sadas

To be honest I don't really read that many books...I suppose I've just been really spoiled and kinda busy enough to the point where audio books are just so much more convienent, plus I already have my fanfic dub channels that keep me entertained enough so I really just kind of fall back onto those. Regardless, I can at least acknowledge a few that I remember going over.
Brave New World: Has got to probably be my best remembered, its not necessarily that I was crazy into it or that I was really like "omg this is just like real life" type of stuff with the dystopia, but rather I think it just made enough good points and was a cool enough concept with the whole precisely engineered society and people that it just kind of sticks out the best. Granted I remember losing a little bit of interest towards the end with the wild kid coming in and messing around in the wider society, but overall I think its reputation is pretty well earned; without there being that much I can really add onto about it, at least without going back and re-reading it.
Vermis: This is certainly one of the more unique choices I could list, but I think that's how it really earns its place; specifically in regards to its obscure sense of story telling. I'd personally recommend Super Eyepatch Wolf as a good introduction if you haven't heard of Vermis, but for those of whom that already know (or don't care to know): The overall bleak, kind of decaying world portrayed in such obscurity not only gives so much room for essentially injecting your own stories but just sort of sparks one's own interest as a natural byproduct. While it obviously gets big points for appealing to my own preferences of darker (especially fantasy) asthetics, I have to give some sort of personal "props" to it for essentially being a produced version of my own imaginations. Mostly in the sense of I love creating all these worlds with far too much time spent on the inner-workings, history, etc. of the actual world (world-building essentially); but I really kind of fail on the front of writing a decent story to take place in it; and I feel like Vermis kind of managed to side-step this in that they give enough of a foundation in both parts to be able to offload the responsibility of furthing it onto the reader. Plus they also just have really good art...that does some good heavy lifting (ironic as it is to list art as a contributor for the "book" section).
The Fishes (1963): This entry isn't really about this book in specific, but more-so a sort of "phase" of my life. I have pretty much the entire 1960's Life Nature Library and I ended up taking fair interest in it as an elementary schooler as a sort of natural progression from the encyclopedias I'd get in the library. I assume I liked this stuff mostly because I'd grown up on animal planet so it'd only be natural that I turn towards books similarily styled to those shows, but whatever the reason I loved taking these books to school and just kinda looking at them--sure I did read them, but as whatever-year-old very little of the information actually stuck, instead enthralling me with cool pictures of nature---especially fish as I've always had a strong fondness for sea creatures and the like (hence my choices of "Fishes" of all the books in the library). Of all the books I've read, this probably has had the least obvious impacts on me, instead giving more of subtle influences to how I've acted in my life, though part of that likely stems from the fact that at the end of the day they were essentially encyclopedias read by an elementary schooler; either way they feel important and just plain cool enough to earn a mention here.
Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets: Honestly, looking back on Harry Potter, I'm not that big a fan. Don't get me wrong, I do think they're enjoyable (especially the movies) and that they hold up plenty well...but really it just doesn't strike me the same way as it does most people. Ie, "is aight." is kind of my opinion on them; ironic as that may sound with me writing this paragraph whilst having the entire collection right next to me irl, but whatever ig. I think for me, the world is just a little too loose with its rules; sure theres awesome magic and wizards, dragons and all sorts of great fantasy that I love; but ultimately I can't really say much about any of it. Everything is sort of a plot device, not that I'm really deriding it as it's all used well enough, but it just doesn't appeal all that well to me. Not to dwell on the negatives though, I felt it should go here as it was the first book series I ever really got into. I distinctly remember straight up skipping recess in elementary school just so I could stay in class and read through the books, which I suppose must mean I must've certainly liked them at the time--and again I do still enjoy them (they're just a bit overrated). Despite whatever my critical feelings on the series are, I'd bet that this probably planted the seeds as to why I enjoy fantasy and especially magic so much (far from the only or probably even the big reason, but likely the start of it). As for why Chamber of Secrets? Honestly not too much reason, the animal interactions are cool and the story is pretty interesting, but honestly my reasoning as a kid for calling it my favorite was because of "Big Snake" and I really do vibe with that summary. But yea if you had to push me I'd probably prefer deathly hallows because of my enjoyment of darker/edgier media so its only natural I'd gravitate there; although I'm certainly forced to admit that the earlier entires really do have their own pieces of character that I could easily see marking them as worthy of being "the favorite."