Some of My Favorite Books

My Top Three books of all time are:
To Kill A Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee
One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Fountainhead ~ Ayn Rand

I love reading so I have a lot of other books I adore but these are the ones I couldn't live with. What can you say about To Kill A Mockingbird? It's just one of the best stories in the world. I love it and read it at least 3 times a year. Yeah, that's excessive but I never get bored.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is such a great epic novel about this Latin American family and its trial and tribulations. I remember when I first read this book I was surprised that many of the stories and themes in the book paralleled my own family. My grandmother, Gilda, and my second cousin, Flora, used to tell us wonderful tales of when they were children growing up in Costa Rica and was they included strange stories about spirits and supernatural, of unique and weird relatives who did strange and weird stuff. And reading this book always reminds me of them and life in Latin America.

The Fountainhead is just a good story with some moral tales interwoven into it. Now I am not a huge follower of Ayn Rand at all but this book and Atlas Shrugged have some good points about how we need to live our life. I think I love Fountainhead so much because in the end Howard doesn't give in and keeps his ideals and principles together. Plus, I think she captures the world and a lot of what she writes about is relevant even now. I love the characters too. When I read it, I just connected to it.

I have tons of other favorites like:

• Walden - Henry Thoreau - this book changed my life, literally
• House of the Spirits ~ Isabel Allende - in fact I love all of her stuff. She is so wonderful. I worship her!!
• Mama Day ~ Gloria Naylor - if you haven't heard of this go get it. It's fabulous
• The Joy Luck Club ~ Amy Tan - sort of the Asian One Hundred Years of Solitude
• The Elementals - Michael McDowell - this is a weird creepy book about a southern family and the supernatural. I don't even know how I got it but I read it and read it every year
• Imagining Argentina - Lawrence Thornton - As you see I love my magical realism and this book captures some of that
• The Green Mile - Stephen King - Okay I admit I came to Stephen King late in life. I was a book snob before and never read his stuff because it was for the masses. That is until I read The Green Mile. And after reading this fabulous wonderful book, I had to read more of this stuff. I thought how can this man who wrote one of the best books ever go wrong? He can't and I love his stuff.
• The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingslover - What a book! OMG
• Sun Signs - Linda Goodman - one of the best books on astrology. At least what it says about me is dead on.

I list these off the top of my head. I read anything and everything and I am no longer a book snob. I will read anything including the stuff for the masses. I especially like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series books, hilarious and fun. And I have more favorites but these are the books in my library that I will never get rid of and always have a copy of. I wish I could list all the books I have loved but it would take up pages.