Best Days of Our Lives Books in Order

Best Days of Our Lives is a small, gift-sized series that lets Gervase Phinn step back from single narratives and become a curator of memories. Instead of following one character, each book gathers short pieces, quotations and anecdotes on a shared theme, all built around the idea that everyday moments can end up shining brightest in hindsight.

Best Days of Our Lives: Schooldays focuses on childhood in and around school. Contributors remember playground games, teachers who inspired or terrified them, embarrassing mishaps in assembly and the long summers that seemed to go on for ever. Phinn weaves in his own stories and commentary, so the tone gently shifts between laugh-out-loud and quietly reflective.

In Grandchildren the spotlight moves to the relationship between older generations and the children who run rings round them. Snippets of conversation, misunderstandings and off-beat compliments capture the way young children can be both brutally honest and unexpectedly wise, and how grandparents relish, and sometimes survive, their energy.

Happy Days widens the frame again to take in weddings, family celebrations, childhood holidays and other big or small milestones. Some stories are Phinn’s own, others are drawn from people who have shared memories with him, but they all circle the same question: which days do we carry with us for decades, and why do they matter so much?

Stylistically these books are easy to dip into. Most pieces are only a page or two long, and the language is straightforward, making them suitable for readers who prefer short bursts of reading or who are returning to books after a break. You can read them from start to finish or open them at random and still find a complete little story.

Taken together, the Best Days of Our Lives series feels like a companion to Phinn’s longer memoirs and school novels: the same interest in ordinary lives, boiled down into bite-sized reflections that are designed to prompt your own memories as much as they showcase his.