Favorite Five Friday is back. I hope you’ll join in the fun and share your favorite five.
I know it’s impossible to narrow down your favorite books, but take five minutes or less and jot down what comes to mind first. I’d love to know what stirs your imagination. Together, perhaps we can create a fabulous reading list. Here are a few dozen other books I’ve enjoyed over the years (in particular order).
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
- The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
- Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Help, Kathryn Sackett
- The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich
- The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
- Palace Walk: The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz
- Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
- Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
- The History of Love, Nicole Kraus
- A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines
- Native Son, Richard Wright
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards
- The Girls, Lori Lasens
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen
- The Book of Bright Ideas, Sandra Kring
- The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
- Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
- Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
- The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
- Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chavelier
- The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
- The Three Junes, Julia Glass
- The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
- What is the What, Dave Eggers
- The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
- Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
- The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
- Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
- John Adams, David McCullough
- The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
- Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
- The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
- In Exile from the Land of Snows, John Avedon
- Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
- Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa, Mark Mathabane
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
- The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
- A Hope in the Unseen, Ron Suskind
- Cutting for Stone
- Wild
Becky, I am loving your blog! I have a huge list of favorite books but I narrowed it down to 6 for ya!
)
1. My New King James version study Bible- God. (I swear every time I open it something I need to harness jumps out at me and almost slaps me in the face. Lol)
2. To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee (Loved this one every since I read it in 3rd grade. It seems like every time I reread this I learn something new about the characters and how it truly relates to my life.)
3. Mere Christianity/ The Screw tape letters- C.S. Lewis (These two go together to help prove the point that C.S. Lewis was trying to get across. I have only read these twice but they have impacted my life so much and helped me on my journey)
4. Where the Red Fern Grows- Wilson Rawls (makes me cry every time. Love it so much even still.)
5. The Essential Rumi- Rumi (I think we can all learn a lesson from this one
6. 23 minutes in hell- Bill Wiese (not for the faint of heart but greatly recommend for everyone. This one opened my eyes immensely to the fact that there is a hell and I don’t want to go there)
Yeah, I know it’s a weird mix of books but all of them have changed my life in some way. I love this exercise! Thank you so much for the wonderful post. I am now a new follower of your blog. Please stop by mine sometime and give it your good two cents for I could use the knowledge of someone like you. I’m a newbie and will take all the feedback I can get! Love what you are doing and keep up the great work. I can’t wait to read more and receive your new posts via email.
Much love and abundant blessings,
Kimmy
Thanks, Kimberly. I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog. It’s great to have you along on this adventure. This is quite an eclectic group of books. That’s what makes reading (and life) so interesting. Thanks for sharing your favs.
My fav books-
1. The other side of me
2. Wings of fire
3. Hamlet
4. Tell me the truth
5. The discovery of India
Arindam, thanks for sharing your favorite five books. For some reason your comment went into a spam folder so I just saw it today. I’m glad I discovered it. These are great!
Not in order, and just five?
1. Three by Sarah Dunant that I’m counting as one sneaky entry: “In the Company of the Courtesan,” “Sacred Hearts,” and “The Birth of Venus”
2. Elizabeth Kostova: “The Historian” and “The Swan Thieves”
3. Markus Zusak: “The Book Thief”
4. Audrey Niffenegger: “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (much better than the movie–but if you’ve not done either one, read first, then watch
5. Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games trilogy
Ok, so I cheated with my “5″
Sneaky, indeed! These are great, Britton. Thanks for sharing your favorites. I haven’t been able to get inspired to pick up The Hunger Games (based on descriptions), but everybody I know loves the trilogy.
Love talking about favourite books! My five:
Winter’s Tale ~ Mark Helprin
The Woman Warrior ~ Maxine Hong Kingston
Barnaby Rudge ~ Charles Dickens
We Were The Mulvaneys ~ Joyce Carol Oates
Something Wicked This Way Comes ~ Ray Bradbury / The Song of the Whales ~ Uri Orlev
(5th and 6th a tie …)
Claudine, thanks for sharing your favorite five/six. I know it’s hard to narrow them down.
I have too many favorites! The other problem is that I’m not a picky reader, and pretty much like almost everything I read. Some of my favorites:
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Emperor of All Maladies by Mukherjee Siddartha
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips
Thank you for this post–I will refer to it when I’m running low on literature!
Jessica, I always know who to call when I need a book recommendation. Thanks for sharing these. And I love that the first one on your list is A Redbird Christmas. I will always think of you when I read it or see the title.
In no particular order:
The Kill a Mockingbird
The Snow Leopard
Middlesex
Cutting For Stone
Lost Horizon
Oh, and anything Mary Oliver writes
Diane, looks like we have similar taste in books. Thanks for sharing your favorite five. Have a great weekend.
I looked at your list again and picked Peace Like a River as my Book Group choice for June. Thanks.
Great choice. Please let me know what you think when you’re done. Happy reading!
Here are my five not in any order:
The Mists of Avalon
The Secret Garden
The Secret Life of Bees
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Cathedral of the Sea
Thanks for sharing your favorite five, Ann. I loved The Secret Life of Bees too. I’m curious what you thought of the movie.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cheri Priest
Chime by Franny Billingsley
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra
Catherine, thanks for sharing your favorite five. It’s fun to see what inspires you.
Not neccessary in order along with many others; but what comes to mind:
Broken for You – Stephanie Kallos
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Charms for the Easy Life – Kay Gibbons
Dune – Frank Herbert
Still Life with Woodpecker – Tom Robbins
Chris, so happy to see some of your favorites! I’m excited to check them out.
Becky, Thanks for reminding me how much I love to read and how much I miss a good novel. Just in time for summer… I would definitely add Cutting for Stone, “The Girl” Trilogy, and Hunger Games Trilogy to your list.
Bonnie, great to see you here! Thanks for adding your favorites to the list. Are you feeling extra creative today after the lecture last night?
Brian emailed me his favorite five:
“Hero” and the “Man Who Never Died” are the most recent. Of course there are the two sixty year old autobiographies of Robert Service, “Ploughman to the Moon” and “Harper of Heaven” that have helped lead me into this vacuum of the literary world.
Just five?
I’m going with five contemporary faves . . .
‘Stones from the River,’ Ursula Hegi
‘The Time of Our Singing,’ Richard Powers
‘The Bluest Eye,’ Toni Morrison
‘To the End of the Land,’ David Grossman
‘Interpreter of Maladies,’ Jhumpa Lahiri
I know, nearly impossible, but I love your five. I’d forgotten about Stones from the River!! Great book. And I thoroughly enjoyed Interpreter of Maladies too. Can’t wait to read the others. I think my book group should be thanking me right now for gathering up all these wonderful ideas.
I’d still love them to read your book though, Shoes, Hair, Nails!
Great new ideas for me to read. I have been in the current “who done it” best sellers cycle for so many years it is time for a break. Thanks.
Enjoy this list. There are a load of gems on here.
Not in any particular order, but these are the first 5 that came to mind as books I loved and would recommend:
Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Richard Bach)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows)
Half Broke Horses (Jeannette Walls)
My Left Foot (Christy Brown)
Rules (Cynthia Lord)
Thanks, Angie! A couple of these have been on my list to read forever. If we could somehow invent more time so we could squeeze in all of life’s joys, that would be fabulous. This list is inspiring me to make more time though! Thanks for sharing these, and happy Friday to you!
My five favorite books:
A Prayer For Owen Meaney — John Irving
A Widow For One Year — John Irving
Mama Day — Gloria Naylor
The House of Mirth — Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence — Edith Wharton
One extra: My favorite book to read my son: And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street — Dr. Seuss
Norine, thanks for sharing your favorite five…I mean six. It’s fun to see what inspires each of us. Happy Friday to you.
My favorite five–that’s difficult. Here are five I thought of this minute:
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion.
The White Album, by Joan Didion.
Build Me an Ark: My Life with Animals, by Brenda Peterson.
A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life, by Steven Kotler.
Thirst, by Mary Oliver.
But I also love Tuesdays with Morrie, the Joy Luck Club, To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women, etc.
I’ll be returning to see other people’s lists too!
Tina,this is great! I’d forgotten Didion on my list! Thanks for the reminder. Love Mary Oliver, too. And the others sound intriguing.
You already named a few of my top 5, but here they are again along with a few extra:
1. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
2. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
3. The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
4. Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield
5. In the Time of the Butterflies – Julia Alvarez
This was tough, because books like Memoirs of a Geisha, The Joy Luck Club and Tuesdays with Morrie occasionally are in that Top 5 (in fact, I think I love almost everything Mitch Albom writes). My Top 5 kind of depends on the day. Right now, I’m currently in the middle of The Poisonwood Bible and am really enjoying it. I can easily see me coming back to this post for more great book ideas.
Beth, thanks for leaving your Favorite Five! I know this is an impossible task, and I realize it probably depends on the day and your frame of mind. I’ve not heard of a few of yours so I’m excited to add these to my reading list. Have a great Friday!