What are your five favorite books, and why?
Only five? That's tough. Let's see:
1) I have to start with the Hardy Boys series because it pulled me back to my local library time and again until I read every single one they had, and thankfully, that was a lot. After I'd gone through them all, I started searching for other books that looked interesting. Of course there were plenty. I do love libraries!
2) John Jakes, the Kent Family Chronicles. I was so fully captivated by that series they might be the first books I reread (since I haven't yet reread a book). I read them back when I was a teen. I love history, especially American history, and the characters pulled me right in.
3) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I love the whole inter-connectedness idea and it's truly uplifting. I'm Christian and follow Christ's teaching to love each other and treat people well (at least I try!), but I've studied enough world religion to realize at the heart of it all, the best and most influential religous leaders all really agree on that one thing: love each other and treat each other, and ourselves, well.
4) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Just ... yes. I haven't read them all yet but I plan to get there.
5) Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Not only is it a touching realistic story with beautiful societal content, but her prose is absolutely outstanding. I also love Gilead and Home. These will be rereads, as well. As a literary-bent writer, these are books not just to savor, but to study.
I cheated a bit using series, but I'm a writer who knows you have to break the rules at times.
What do you read for pleasure?
I read a lot of literary/mainstream fiction and I have since I was young. I also love historicals and my current author loves are Edward Rutherford and Frank Delaney. I tend more toward male authors for some reason. However, I do love a nice well-written deep characterization romance when I can find that. Now and then I read non-fiction, often music and other artist biographies. I like cozy mysteries, such as Roberta Isleib and Maggie Toussaint. I'm fairly open to most genres other than horror, graphic suspense, erotica, or sci fi (although I'm a Star Trek and original Star Wars fan).
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