I would have to say one of my favorite books is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read that as a younger teen and it still makes me laugh aloud today. For those of us from "geek" culture, the guide was a life-changing experience. It peaked our interest in Wikipedia, mobile phones, and universal translators. Not to mention who could forget the
awesome text game?

I loved The God of Small Things. A story of love and class divisions in India, its writing amazed me into tears many times. Beautiful and sad.

Last year it was The Book Thief. I have not decided yet this year. For non-fiction it has been From Good to Great for years now.

My favorite books from the list are the Jane Austen novels. Everytime I read them I learn something new from them, they are still relevant after all this time, and they all have happy endings!

I first read the Lord of the Rings in the seventh grade. Needless to say, at that time my literary tastes were unformed, and I was blissfully unaware of some of the critiques of the work (archetypes in lieu of characters, not enough female protagonists, evidence of racism, etc.). I simply fell in love with it. By the eighth grade, I had memorized much of the verse, and one day while waiting for the start of chemistry class, I transcribed the whole "three rings for the elven kings" thing on the blackboard. My teacher must have been a fan also, because he left it up there for several days. Whatever its faults may be, or whether it qualifies as Literature with a capital "L," it ingrained in me a love of certain values that I hold dear to this day: the potential triumph of good over evil, the heroism of the little guy (both literally and figuratively, ha), and the awesome power of friendship and self-sacrifice. Of all the books I have loved, I have gone back and re-read the Lord of the Rings more than any other.

Terri--You captured perfectly my feelings for LOTR! I found it in my pile of gifts from Santa when I was in 6th grade, started reading The Hobbit right then...and I have since re-read the whole series every two years or so. I imagine I'll do so for the rest of my life. :^)

Terzah wrote: "Terri--You captured perfectly my feelings for LOTR! I found it in my pile of gifts from Santa when I was in 6th grade, started reading The Hobbit right then...and I have since re-read the whole ser..."

I'm with you - I expect I'll never get too old for it. Every few years I start feeling the need for my LOTR fix! :)

Terzah wrote: "I loved The God of Small Things. A story of love and class divisions in India, its writing amazed me into tears many times. Beautiful and sad."
The language in this book stunned me. For the first 10 or 15 pages, I didn't know what was happening syntactically (sp? word?) It was different from anything I had read and then I fell into the poetry of it and even the emotional and physical violence woven into the story of the lives of the characters didn't scare me away. The Sound of Music segment is brilliant. It says everything about post-colonialism, east/west, the understandings and private inner lives of children. Melinda

Melinda wrote: "Terzah wrote: "I loved The God of Small Things. A story of love and class divisions in India, its writing amazed me into tears many times. Beautiful and sad."
The language in this book stunned me...."

This one's on my reading list, and after Terzah's and Melinda's comments, I'm moving it to the top - thanks!