MY Books

After the last list of books I mostly haven't read, De suggested I share my own list of favorites. And so, after an exhausting survey of my bookshelves and memories, I'm happy to present 51 (I like being odd) of my favorites. Mostly fiction, but a few nonfiction titles. I also decided not to include picture books, which ought to be cause for another list entirely. I've tried to go through this list so there aren't any duplicates with any of the other lists previously presented, so remember that before you get all up on my face for not mentioning "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Which totally rocks.

In places I've also included an entire series under one title listing, but the other lists did that too, so I'm entitled. Now, without further ado, the list:

1. Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman
2. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
3. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
4. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
5. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
6. Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
7. The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Reverte
8. Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire
9. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
10. Dracula, Bram Stoker
11. The Eight, Katherine Neville
12. Emma, Jane Austen
13. The Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King
14. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
15. Fatherland, Robert Harris
16. The Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay
17. The Forever King, Molly Cochran & Warren Murphy
18. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
19. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
20. Girl With A Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
21. The Good Master, Kate Seredy
22. Good Omens, Nel Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
23. The Gypsy, Megan Lindholm & Steven Brust
24. The Hero and The Crown, Robin McKinley
25. In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson
26. Intimations of Immortality, Piers Anthony
27. Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell
28. James and The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
29. King of the Wind, Marguerite Henry
30. Kissing in Manhattan, David Schickler
31. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
32. The Man Who Was Thursday, G.K. Chesterton
33. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
34. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
35. The Once and Future King, T.H. White
36. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
37. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
38. The Quality of Mercy, Faye Kellerman
39. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
40. The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff
41. The Thief Lord, Cornelia Funke
42. Time And Again, Jack Finney
43. Tomorrow, When the War Began, James Marsden
44. Sabriel, Garth Nix
45. Sandman, Neil Gaiman
46. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy
47. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
48. Whose Body?, Dorothy L. Sayers
49. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
50. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
51. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle

Which represents lots of really hard choices. For the most part, I only took one book by an author, except for William Goldman, whose "The Princess Bride" is probably my favorite book EVER, but "Adventures in the Screen Trade" is such a wonderful nonfiction account of a life making movies. Likewise, it was tough to pick "The Secret Garden" over "The Little Princess," "Fatherland" over "Enigma," and "The Good Master" over "The Chestry Oak," one of the seminal books of my childhood.

Still, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Every book above is one I read and loved at some point in my life, and each one opens up a wealth of other great book ideas.