Favorite Books:
Do not confuse this with a complete list of all the books I’ve read because my imaginary sense of decency demands that I not intimidate you with my humongous list. This is just a list of books that I’ve loved.
Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Ordinary People – Judith Guest
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – Philip K. Dick
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
Madam Will You Talk – Mary Stewart
My Brother Michael – Mary Stewart
ALL of MARY STEWART’s BOOKS. Except for The Stormy Petrol which was feeble and annoying. I don’t know what happened there. Drugs?
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Busman’s Holiday – Dorothy L. Sayers (and the rest of this series)
At least 87 of Agatha Christie’s mysteries. Hated the one where the narrator was the murderer.
The Toll Booth – Georgette Heyer (and most of her other books besides the really tedious ones and none of the detective ones)
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Perfume – Patrick Suskind
The Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan
The Once and Future King – T.H. White
Franny and Zoe – J.D. Salinger
The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
A Room With a View – E.M. Forrester
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
A Relative Stranger – Anne Stevenson (not the poet)
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (so predictable of me)
Innocents Abroad – Mark Twain
The Scarlet Letter – Nathanial Hawthorne (read against my will and with intent to hate but was profoundly surprised at how much I got out of it)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
Another Country – James Baldwin
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
Possession – A.S. Byatt
Every Single Nancy Drew book – smart girl + boyfriend named Ned, of all things + stylish clothes = the life I wanted to lead. Though looking back I kind of wish the crimes were really greusome instead of being gentle like Scooby Doo plots.
A Great Deliverance – Elizabeth George (and most of the Lynley series until I got too sick of Lynley and Helen’s stupid dysfunction and gave up on them)
Hieronymus Bosch series – Michael Connelly
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Travels With Alice and Third Helpings – Calvin Trillin
Kurt Vonnegut. (Here I am forced to admit that I did all my Vonnegut reading when very young and LOVE his work and I had a very favorite but no longer remember which it was. And I’m not in the mood to reread them all yet. His humor, his politics, his “advice” make him a writing hero of mine.)
The Eden Express – Mark Vonnegut (!!)
Bridget Jone’s Diary – Helen Fielding
Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin (loved the whole Rebus series)
Those were the ones I could think of in an hour.