My Top 40 Reads

I’m at work on the outline of the sequel to TOUCHED and beta reading a novel for an AW friend. (For those that don’t know, a beta reader scours through your manuscript or WIP looking for plot problems or glaring errors. Better than a workshop because it’s so in depth. And we do it out of the goodness of our hearts.) That didn’t leave me with a lot of time to blog today. Instead, I came up with my list of the Top 40 books I’ve read. There’s no rhyme or reason to my list as it crosses genres and subject matter. Childhood favorites sit next to Greek tragedy on my shelves, along with beloved romance novels.

SHADOW CASTLE is the book I read as a child that started my love affair with reading. I remember exactly where I was when I read it and how it captured my imagination so that I spun fantasies of my own using the story’s premise. Perhaps this was the beginning of my love affair with writing. I plan to post some book reviews of a few of these books over the coming weeks. What surprising books top your list?

Note: this list is not in any particular order. That would be impossible since my favorite changes with my mood. The list also doesn’t include any of the poetry books I hold dear.

1. SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson
2. THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher
3. MY SISTER’S KEEPER by Jodi Picoult
4. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte
5. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
6. GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens
7. SHADOW CASTLE by Marian Cockrell
8. PETER PAN by J.M. Barrie
9. EMPIRE FALLS by Richard Russo
10. LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE by Laura Esquivel
11. CHOCOLAT by Joanne Harris
12. POSSESSION by A.S. Byatt
13. THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel Hawthorne
14. THE EYRE AFFAIR by Jasper Fforde
15. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE by William Shakespeare
16. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare
17. HAMLET by William Shakespeare
18. OTHELLO by William Shakespeare
19. THE ILIAD by Homer
20. FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley
21. PARADISE LOST by John Milton
22. METAMORPHOSES by Ovid
23. W;T by Margaret Edson
24. BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY by Helen Fielding
25. SHORT CUTS by Raymond Carver
26. OEDIPUS REX by Sophocles
27. THE CANTERBURY TALES by Geoffrey Chaucer
28. A DOLL’S HOUSE by Henrik Ibsen
29. TIGER EYES by Jude Blume
30. THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK by Joan Lowery Nixon
31. HARRY POTTER series by J.K. Rowling
32. TWILIGHT series by Stephanie Meyer
33. DICTIONARY/THESAURUS – I admit this is sad, but I’ve spent hours looking through mine.
34. ANY book by Jennifer Crusie
35. BORN IN SHAME/CAROLINA MOON by Nora Roberts – it’s a tie between these thee because I love them equally
36. NOW YOU SEE HER/MR. PERFECT/OPEN SEASON by Linda Howard – It’s a tie between these three because I love them equally
37. FLOWERS FROM THE STORM by Laura Kinsale
38. THE SHADOW AND THE STAR by Laura Kinsale
39. TRUST ME by Jayne Ann Krentz
40. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY by Jayne Ann Krentz