Ten Books In Ten Minutes

Congratulations to me, I was the last person on earth to be tagged in the Facebook Book Meme!

(Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays to me. I’m an equal opportunity celebrator around here.)

Now, I’m not one to typically play Facebook memes. You won’t catch me going to some random country for a strange number of days or telling you what color my brassiere is or having a holiday dinner party with the first nine people in my Facebook chat list.

But books and I are likethis.

Actually, it’s funny that this meme finally came around to me, by this lovely lady, when it did. Because just this week I asked the staff members and writers at my day job to name me the best book they read in 2013, and was shocked—and sort of sad—that the majority of them hadn’t read a single book in 2013. Not one. I can’t even imagine this. I read eight books on my one-week trip to St. Lucia. Books are like oxygen to me—I could not survive without them.

I wouldn’t want to, actually.

As a writer, especially, reading is what fuels me. I started this love affair young and plowed my way right through the entire Babysitters Club series and The Little House on The Prairie series. I read Little Women until the pages quite literally fell apart in my hands—and it was different every single time. I didn’t have enough, uh, patience to get through The English Patient and I’m still kicking myself over it. I’ve written before about giving up on books, and needing to learn to do that. And I have! I have given up on several books this year alone, because my to-read list is long and vast, and there’s no room in my life for a mediocre book that might possibly get better. I learned my lesson with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo—not worth sticking it out. And, well, that entire 50 Shades of Grey situation.

The challenge here is not to list my ten favorite books, but instead, to choose ten books that have stayed with me. And to add an extra wrinkle here—to not think too hard about it.

So. Here it is.

These are books that got under my skin, permeated through my bones. They are books I won’t forget, for many reasons. Made me laugh, made me cry, made me think.
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
The 19th Wife: A Novel by David Ebershoff
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling
Rules of Civility: A Novel by Amor Towles
Little Women (Bantam Classics) by Louisa May Alcott
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Tag, you’re it! I’d love it if you would take ten minutes and tell me yours.