favorite books of all time

As I was packing up my room and saying goodbye to my beautiful blue walls (hand-painted by me, Mom, and Mary Cote… see last christmas at home for why I’m getting teary-eyed over something as trivial as my bedroom walls) I also had the enjoyable task of looking through all of my favorite stuff. Favorite knickknacks, favorite scented candles, favorite purses, and favorite books, all got packed lovingly into boxes and hauled to Bozeman. There are now at least 10 boxes labeled “JENNIFER’S STUFF” sitting in my parents’ storage unit in Bozeman, and 6 out of the 10 boxes are filled with books. I re-read my books over and over again, and I enjoy them over and over again, so I feel like I am cutting out part of my soul when I get rid of a book. I am a reading fanatic—this summer, before I got a new computer and before I got a roommate, I read. And I read. I went to the Teton County Library in Jackson, WY, and started in the A section… I’m not going to say that I read every single fiction book whose author’s last name started with A, but it was close. I read all of the interesting As, then I moved onto the Bs and Cs, and then I skipped to the Ms, just to shake things up a bit. I think I read about 70 books before my roommate moved in and I got a computer (because then we started watching movies) and I read another 30 or so before the summer was out. Since moving to Spain, the pace has slowed a little, but I still try and read as much as possible.

7 books that I read before graduating from high school remaining on my all-time favorites list:

1) Beauty by Robin McKinley. When I was in 5^th or 6^th grade, the Mammoth School had a day where community members came into the classrooms and read a few chapters from their favorite books. Ben Underwood’s dad came in and read the British version of Harry Potter just to show us new-found Harry fanatics how the American version catered to us. This makes me think I must have been in 6^th grade, because I can still remember the day in 1999 that Jennifer Whipple let my mom borrow her copy of all-time-favorites-number 2) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, saying I might enjoy it. Even then, I was a voracious reader, but I can’t remember ever enjoying a book as much as Harry Potter. I was 11 years old, and Harry was 11 years old. He was just headed off to a new school, and I was about to begin junior high the next year. Harry’s witty jabs at his fat cousin made me laugh for days—the jokes fit an 11-year-old’s sense of humor to a T. I could go on and on about the parallels that I saw between Harry’s life and my own (ignoring the fact that I was A) female, B) American, C) nonmagical, and D) not a world-famous orphan destined to defeat the greatest evil on earth) but you get the picture. I was, and always will be, a die-hard Harry Potter fan—that is, a fan of the books, not those terrible movie reproductions that cheapen the entire experience. But don’t get me started on those.

Where was I? I think I was talking about a different book, before I launched off on memory trip down Harry Potter lane. In 6^th grade, then, Mr. Underwood came in and read a chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and another wonderful woman, whose identity I completely forget, read Beauty. Robin McKinley specializes in re-writing classic fairy tales, and turning them into novels. Beauty is a re-telling of “Beauty and the Beast,” and it, along with the rest of Robin McKinley’s oeuvre, is extremely well-written, full of subtle humor, and ultimately tells truths about being human, all wrapped up in a fantasy cloak. Although I first fell in love with it as a preteen, it still makes me feel warm and fuzzy each time I read it.

3) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I first read this gem in 8^th grade, and I have never been so surprised or so romantically inspired as the first time I got to the ending. (Yes, I know… I was a little slow on picking up the foreshadowing throughout the novel. The first time I read Watership Down, I really did think it was about rabbits.) Every summer when my family and I go on a backpacking trip in Yellowstone, I bring Pride and Prejudice along for company. Anyways, this was a lovely introduction to the beauty of Jane Austen, and I read each and every book, including the unfinished ones, with relish. I even started reading them with a bit of literary criticism in mind, although I never got to the level of a wonderfully intelligent college roommate of mine, who wrote her entire English thesis on Jane Austen, while simultaneously writing a kick-ass philosophy thesis. Again, Jane Austen=literary master. None of the movies compare, not even the one with Colin Firth.

4) Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett. This is the 6^th book in the Lymond Chronicle series, a historical fiction saga set in 16^th-century Europe. The protagonist, Francis Crawford of Lymond, is a razor-sharp, charismatic, complex figure, who manages to topple rulers, create armies, range across Scotland, England, France, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Malta, North Africa, and everywhere in between, all while trying to protect Scotland from the invading English, uncover his family’s mysterious past, find his kidnapped son, and get himself killed and safely out of the way before harm befalls the love of his life. Does my synopsis sound trite? Synopses usually are—but I promise you, this series contains some of the most complex, hilarious, tragic, and best-written 3000 pages I’ve ever read, and the last book, Checkmate, tops them all.

5) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I’m not sure whether this is still one of my favorite favorite books, but I, like any teenager, went through an intense Ayn Rand phase and absolutely adored this book. While I’m no longer convinced that selfishism is the cure for the world’s evils, I still think The Fountainhead is an excellent book, especially the parts that focus on individual creativity.

6) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I nabbed this from my dad’s bookshelf and first read it on an airplane when I was about 15 years old. I sat by a rather old dude who laughed his head off when he saw what I was reading. He asked if I was going through my own social revolution, and I was politely puzzled—I guess I missed the boat back in the 70s. I loved this book, though, and its practical approach to philosophy: how can we find a balance between enjoying life/living in the moment and looking at the bigger picture/rationally analyzing our own lives?

7) Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede. This is another shout-out to my erstwhile love for, and occasional ongoing indulgence in, the science fiction/fantasy section. I loved this book! It is the first in a series populated by finicky dragons, gutsy princesses, persnickety princes, practical witches, and one enchanted forest. A delightful read.

7 favorite books that I picked up from 2006 to present:

1) The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. One of the random books-with-A-authors that I picked up at the Teton County Library this summer, this one is genuinely a masterpiece. I don’t have the right words to describe it, so here’s what one online review said: “Margaret Atwood's 38th book is not one story, but four: the tales nested perfectly in Russian doll style, one dovetailing into the next and providing a launching point for those still to come. It's initially dizzying, then dazzling and -- finally -- very compelling to watch Atwood weave her brilliant tapestry.”

2) Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a slim, 144-page novel detailing the inevitable steps, already laid in place by social customs and societal morals, leading a community to an unthinkable murder.

3) Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. This lovely, moving book won the Pulitzer in 2005. It's written from the point of view of an aging Congregationalist minister in Iowa, and it's about relationships between fathers and sons, between neighbors, and between humans and God. Excellent.

4) A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I read this extended essay as an assigned piece in a freshman seminar class, and it was the very first book that really made me think about how our everyday choices and actions can be determined by societal roles. Gender roles had a deathgrip on the possibilities open to women before the feminist revolution, and through the tireless work of thousands of women like Virginia Woolf, we now live in a more-balanced society. We still have a long ways to go, though: did you know that the median income for full-time, year-round male workers in 2009 was $45,161, while the median income for women who worked full-time and year-round was $35,104? Having equal pay does not mean that we will all be truly equal, but it’s a good start.

5) What We Say to Strangers by Barbara Drake. During my sophomore year at Linfield, when I lived alone on the third floor of Potter Hall, I climbed out of my window every morning and sat on the roof, drinking coffee and reading poetry. Along with Billy Collins, Barbara Drake is one of my favorite authors of poetry. She was also the professor of that freshman seminar class where we read A Room of One’s Own. She retired from Linfield immediately after teaching that class, which is a shame: I, like any incoming freshman, did not appreciate what my professor had to offer until she had left. It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I was reshelving books in the library (I worked at the circulation desk) and I was putzing around the American-Authors-That-Begin-With-D section that I found some of Professor Drake’s chapbooks. The Linfield library only had three or four of her books, and they were so wonderful that I went online to track down elusive copies of her other works. If I could arrange my thoughts in the way that Barbara Drake expresses herself in poetry, I would be at peace.

6) The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder. I picked up this keeper, by the author of Sophie’s World (another beautiful book) in a bookstore in Ecuador. My year in Ecuador was a difficult one for many reasons, not least of which was the lack of access to good books. (In the summer following my study abroad in Ecuador, I lugged a secondary backpack full of books all over Europe because after 9 months of struggles to satisfy my literary appetite, I was not about to spend another bookless 2 months, not even if those months were spent blissfully traipsing around Europe.) There was one bookstore that had an English section that filled about 2 shelves, and most of the books were either very dry classics, literary analysis, or weird, trashy, horror-sci fi-fantasy combos. (And this is coming from someone who generally likes science fiction and fantasy.) There were a few gems scattered among the space-wasters, though, and The Orange Girl was one of them. It is a simple love story with a complicated framework: the story is written from the point of view of a boy who finds a letter written by his long-deceased father. The letter recounts the father’s encounter with a mysterious woman, and explores the themes of loss, love, and the beauty and mystery of being human.

7) Atonement by Ian McEwan. The movie was good and all, but the book was so much more than Keira Knightly and James McAvoy being tragically good-looking together! Atonement (the book) is about trying to control our lives, trying to make sense of our surroundings, and trying to choose our destinies. It is ultimately a book about what it means to be a writer.

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Enjoy a good read!