Aren’t books a blessing? I love it when when I can get lost in a book, lost in its words and its messages and its world. I love a good weekend morning with nothing to do where I can curl up in bed with one of these books. Pushing off the start to my day just a little bit longer. Just because I want to.
It’s rare for me to find a book I love this much. Usually I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the school week, or sucked into the many blogs that I love to read. So it’s rare for me to pause for awhile with just a book. Especially because I’m so easily distracted by everything else that’s right at my fingertips.
I need to try and make more time for books because I do love them so. I love to get lost in them and find new friends. I love to imagine myself someplace different. In a different life, in a different country, with a different name. That’s the best thing about books. The way you can travel to the unknown, through the darkness and light and still come back to exactly where you were before. But changed somehow. Different.
Here is a list of books that have changed me. They are the ones I want to read again someday and the ones I always recommend to a friend.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
So, what are some of your favorite reads? The ones that made you stop and think? The ones that took your breath away as you read the last word? The ones where you smiled as you closed the back cover and thought to yourself, That was such a wonderful read. Wow.
Give me some book love! I want to hear your faves!
oh, i love this. you have such a great voice. thanks for the suggestions! i am needing some. I agree with severeal of yours- like The Art of Racing in the Rain and Harry Potter. I felt this way about A Thousand Splendid Suns and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, just to name a couple.
oh yes! A thousand splendid suns was so good! And I haven’t thought about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in ages…. going to have to put that on my to-read-again list!
I’m going to bookmark this post and come back to it. I’m always in search of a good one. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand really spoke to me as a teenager – I’m going to have to pick it up and see if I read it with a different interpretation now
I’ve never heard of that book so thanks! adding it to my list!
many of these books are young adult novels/children’s books, but they are SO wonderful. Sometimes those books snag at your heart even better than grown-up books.
i love this. all of it. i loved the red tent, and i loved/love harry potter. i love anything by madeleine l’engle. and “the world according to garp” broke my heart like 18 times.
i need to read that– The World According to Garp. Heard it’s great and so it’s going on the list!
Thanks for the suggestions!
Gah…favorite post ever. Do you know the only book I’ve read from your list is HP? Now I have to go add a bunch to my to-read list (though some were already on there…confirmation that I need to get reading asap).
My most wonderful reads would have to include A Little Princess, The Count of Monte Cristo, and always, always Jane Austen. And HP too. =)
A Little Princess! I LOVE!!!!
YES! the art of racing in the rain= changed my life. no overstatement there. i also really adored to a sickening extent:
-memoirs of a geisha
-the time traveler’s wife
-the entire hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy series
-any of alison mcghee’s picture books (children’s books, but so so stunning both in words and pictures)
Loved Memoirs of a Geisha. Loved it.
And children’s books?! Often my favorite!!! :)
SO many amazing suggestions!
THANK YOU ALL! :)
Have you read Cassandra Clare’s books that the quote on the photo is from? I believe its the first of her Infernal Devices series, Clockwork Angel. She writes two young adult series and its a toss up between which is better.
I am so much more into fantasy so this list may not be for you but Laini Taylor is an AMAZING wordsmith in her descriptions and characters in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I just finished listening to Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (one of the first audiobooks I’ve ever listened to and it was amazing). She falls into that fabulous wordsmith category but its a more verbose read.
You should also check out A Discovery of Witches (I forget the author and this is a lot longer than I intended already), Not My Type by Melanie Jacobson, and many more.
These are my favorites in the last month and if you asked last year it would have been so different. It’s interest how things change.
I’m telling you all of these because I am stealling your quote photo so I thought I’d give something in return.
Angela
P.S. I love Harry Potter (everyone should read the whole series), Jane Austen (love!), Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series and Alpha and Omega series, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has for sure had an impact on me but it is a formidable read at 1168 pages.
Enjoy.
Ah, The Book Thief is one of my all time favs and LOVE Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I just really love those books that get your emotions going!