My Top 21 List (yes list) By Debralee Mede

Okay, so I did it! I survived Connecticut Light and Power's blunder and the Zombie-Apocalypse test! So what did this Ice Zombie do to keep warm?  Well I had a cleaning orgy, hoping I could use some of my own fossil fuel to generate heat.  Yes, first I cleaned refrigerator to emptiness and mechanical desolation because it's dead and no longer able to keep anything chilled.  I later attempted to transform some closets into less cluttered storage spaces, naturally taking a break every few minutes to huddle in a pile of anything that looked warm. From ceiling to floor and file folders to book cases and drawers, I did my best to clean and keep warm.   When the scarf I wore around my neck and much of the lower half of my head didn't ride up and block my vision, I moved furniture and I must say that my office space started to look better.

One area that was challenging for me to deal with was my bookshelves.  Just the thought of sending some of the books that had lined my bookcases for so long and made the shelves groan and bow in the middle from their weight to another home was difficult to bear and this was because so many have marked great times and hard times as well.  They are old friends that I'd rather keep close so I can check in with them now and again.  Many of them are like snapshots in time and represent changes in my work, my life and my imagination.

It was hard to decide on which would stay and which would move on to a new home.  Certainly some of the "necessities" had to remain like my copy of the compact Oxford English Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, The Bible, and some coffee table and travel books of the New England area.  I hope the ones that move end up in a good home appreciated for their intellectual and engaging value.   Other's though just need to remain.  Their pages are worn and wrinkled from all the times that I have reread them. They are wise and entertaining.  They are the past and the future.  I have drifted to sleep with them by my pillows at night, finding comfort between their sheets and between the sheets of my once warm bed.  Their fragile pages have a familiar bookish scent that brings me back to many fond memories that I want to share with you.  Here are my favorite twenty-one picks.

 The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan:  Tan is such a wonderful story-teller and this is a well-constructed tale about the mother-daughter relationship layered with themes that include secrets, revelation, separation, and reconciliation.  Just an amazing book.
Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan: Another great tale that is a ghost story woven with twisted threads of satire, magical realism and mystery. 
Wild Ginger: A Novel by Anchie Min:  A great novel having to do with love and involving young people caught up in the Cultural Revolution at the end of the Mao regimen.  This is an even better read if you enjoy learning other cultures.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Steven King:  Of course I love this book: it takes a practical look at the art of writing and the tools any writer needs.  It includes his personal history and perspective,  a little memoir, of the struggles in the life and times of Steven King:  his early life, his later life as a published author and the incidents around his near- fatal accident and the effect it had on his writing.  A really inspiring book.
Hearts in Atlantis by Steven King: I love this man's imagination and story-telling ability.  It's a look back into the sixties in ways probably never seen before.  It is full of danger and suspense and, well, heart.  This book and King, yet again, won't let you down.
Dolores Claiborneby Steven King: an incredible psychological thriller that is vivid, sensitive and like no other book.
Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg:  It's the Zen of the "Art of Write."  Goldberg wrote this with uncanny wit and philosophical bend.  It is a great book on how to create, without over-restrictive thought and lose control with pen in hand.
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: How to live a fully creative life and though this is a short sentence this book is long on helpful ideas and guidance
The Giver by Lois Lowry:  A world without pain or war and everything is under control.  Check out what role The Giver plays in all this. 
Night by Elie Wiesel:  An upfront and truthful autobiographical account of Wiesel's survival in a Nazi death camp.  A memoir that moves me to tears, anger and inspires courage.  It is a work I can't forget.
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal:  After reading this book in college for a philosophy class I have not been able to stop recommending it.   Wiesenthal poses moral questions that I still have to explore today.  He tells readers about a specific incident related to a dying SS officer he was sent to see while prisoner in a concentration camp.  The incident created a moral dilemma for him then and the reader now.  The questions that come up have to do with the meaning of justice, forgiveness, and compassion and what part they play in anyone's life.
Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer:  Nobel Prize-winning author Gordimer tells the story of the fictitious character, Rosa, an Anti-Apartheid lawyer's daughter, who has to come to grips with the circumstances she is dealt in the world that she lives in and has no control over.  She has to find her voice, stand for what she believes and eventually come to terms with her life.  Not an easy read but certainly worthwhile. 
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout:  Mix together a northern New England town, a few chosen inhabitants, the pharmacist who is the husband of the title character, a stern, perceptive but somewhat sad, retired school teacher.  The novel is told as short stories.  I find that this novel gets me to think about why people do what they do and what motivates them.   It is a gold mine in the study of human emotion.
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx:  This one takes place mostly on a Newfoundland fishing town and involves the lives of a not-so-great newspaperman, his lesbian aunt, two young daughters who move back into their ancestral home by this sea, and his new love interest.   Proulx does an incredible job helping the reader witness the transformation of each character.  The novel is comical and profound.  So worth reading and I have, three times.
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler:  Dying millionaire hires wise cracking, hard-drinking, tough but contemplative Detective Marlowe to deal with a blackmailer of one of his two daughters who are just trouble.  Marlowe finds himself involved with more than just extortion.  He has to deal with sex, violence and all in direct prose.  Gripping and fun to read in my opinion.
Vanishing Acts: A Novel by Jodi Picoult: It is difficult for me to pick one of her novels and I have eleven.   This one is about a search-and-rescue worker who, in an unexpected twist of fate is a missing person herself.  She is also the daughter of a well-liked amateur magician who seems to be able to make people disappear.  Hmm.
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch: Talk about tangled tales and dark humor but a great read.  Love and adultery, deception and self-deception, jealousy and attempted suicide, written in such a way to make it all interesting.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel:  Soap opera meets exaggerated mystical fable, meets home remedy meets cookbook.  A novel that I found funny, poignant and managed to rip my heart out like no other.  One sentence just cannot do it justice.  Believe me!
The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende:  An incredibly vivid and spellbinding work presenting the relationships of a family and nation, in the past and present intertwined with war and spiritualism, magical realism, love and honor, imagination and sensitivity.  How'd she do it?  Read it because it's a truly moving and wonderful book.
Those Who Love by Irving Stone: a biographical novel that transports you back in time in American History.  It is a story told by Abigail Adams about the love she and her husband John shared for each other.  I was not able to stop reading this book.
John Adams by David McCullough: Since I love biographies and American History and the Adams' this was for me. It helps that I'm from Boston too, I'm sure.

There are other books I've kept, though the ones I gave up were hard to relinquish.  In so many ways the books that I decided to keep seemed to have a commonality: they all had characters that I found and continue to find compelling and unforgettable.  There is a passion that runs in them and through their lives; they provide insight into the human condition and provide memorable moments of romance, mystery, suspense and reality.  The authors managed to get my ear, my imagination and they touched my heart with indelible and insightful voices.  Some beliefs that they share and encapsulate I see for myself in everyday life and some I don't, but one thing is for sure: these are all keepers on my book shelf.

I think these are my neighbors

Filed under: Debralee Mede, romance