"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books."

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I don’t think it would be too far-fetched to say that books make up an overwhelming percentage of who I am. I was very often read to as a child (thanks, Mom!); I spent my summers participating in the library summer reading programs; I spent another summer volunteering at the library; my favorite high school job was in a bookstore; I always have a “free-reading” book with me; I married a fellow book lover; we consequently own more books than shelf space; and I think an enlightened conversation somehow brings in a discussion about books. So, yesterday when Sara requested I compile a list of favorite recent reads, I pretty much jumped on the opportunity. I got a bit carried away, as you can see below. But even so, this list is anything but comprehensive. It includes some recent reads that I’ve enjoyed, as well as a bunch of you-can’t-go-wrong-with-‘em favorites. But I know I’m leaving armfuls of other books I’ve enjoyed off – I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, right? Anyway, thanks, Sara, for the excuse to think about favorite books.

Regional (i.e. Indiana) Favorites:

• A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel
• She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel
• In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd
• How Dear to My Heart by Emily Kimbrough
• The Innocents from Indiana by Emily Kimbrough
• Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough

Poetry I Couldn’t Live Without:

• The Collected Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay
• The Collected Works of e. e. cummings
• The Collected Works of Pablo Neruda
• Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
• Long Ago in Oregon by Claudia Lewis
• Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle and Other Modern Verse ed. by Stephen Dunning, Edward Lueders, and Hugh Smith
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• The Random House Book of Poetry for Children ed. by Jack Prelutsky and Arnold Lobel

You Can’t Go Wrong With Children’s Fiction:

• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
• Out of the Dust by Karen Smith
• The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
• Walk Two Moons and Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
• The Trouble with Jenny’s Ear by Oliver Butterworth
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Anything by Patricia MacLachlan (especially: Sarah, Plain and Tall; Skylark; Journey; and Baby)
• Anything by Beverly Cleary (especially: the Ramona series; the Henry Huggins series; Ellen Tebbits; and Otis Spofford)

Not All Non-Fiction is Boring:

• The Bronte’s: A Life in Letters ed. by Juliet Barker
• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
• The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
• The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way by Bill Bryson
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher
• We Interrupt this Broadcast by Joe Garner

Also, Not All Classic Novels Are Boring:

• Anything by J. D. Salinger (including: Catcher in the Rye; Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters/Seymour, an Introduction; Franny and Zooey; and Nine Stories)
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Marier
• Anything by a Bronte sister (especially: Jane Eyre (Charlotte); Wuthering Heights (Emily); and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne))
• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

But I Don’t Just Enjoy “Old” Books:

• The Von Igelfeld series by Alexander McCall Smith (including: Portuguese Irregular Verbs; The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs; and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Personal Life-Long Favorites:

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
• The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

Happy Reading!