A room without books is like a body without a soul. Cicero
Since 1986, I've kept a yearly list of all the books I've read, and here I am listing my favorites our of all of those, in order by author. Perhaps it's futile to keep such a list; there are so many favorites after over 20 years! And it's just another list that will need updating. But I enjoy making lists, so here goes:
Dan Allender
Intimate Allies
The Wounded Heart
To Be Told
Julia Alvarez
In the Time of Butterflies
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Alan Bennett
The Uncommon Reader
The Lady in the Van
Wendell Berry
Hannah Coulter
Fidelity (short stories)
Maeve Binchy
(it's all good!)
Anita Brookner
Hotel du Lac
A Friend from England
The Bay of Angels
Walter Brueggemann
Finally Comes the Poet
Bill Bryson
Notes from a Small Island
A Walk in the Woods
The Lost Continent
Frederick Buechner
The Sacred Journey
Secrets in the Dark
The Faces of Jesus
Whistling in the Dark
Dario Castagno
Too Much Tuscan Sun
A Day in Tuscany
Chapman, Steven Curtis and Scotty Smith
Restoring Broken Things
Agatha Christie
Come Tell Me How You Live
Colette
Break of Day
My Mothers House/Sido
Earthly Paradise
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Vine of Desire
Mistress of Spices
Sister of my Heart
Christmas and Advent Books
Behold That Star, A Christmas Anthology, edited by the Bruderhof
Christmas with Rosamunde Pilcher
Accompanied by Angels (poems), Luci Shaw
The Christmas Collection, Susan Hill
An Irish Country Christmas, Alice Taylor
He Started the Whole World Singing, Gloria Gaither
The Faces of Jesus, Frederich Buechner
Incarnation, Alistair McGrath
Miracle on 10th Street (poems and essays), Madeleine L'Engle
I Saw Three Ships, Elizabeth Goudge
Corrie's Christmas Memories, Corrie ten Boom
A Christmas Book, Elizabeth Goudge
Shepherds Abiding, Jan Karon
Miss Reed's Christmas Tales, Miss Reed
Once Upon a Christmas, Thyra Ferre Bjorn
The Story of Holly and Ivy, Rumer Godden
Roger Deakin
Wildwood: A Journey through Trees
Esther de Waal
The Celtic Way of Prayer
Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict
Anita Diamant
The Red Tent
John Eldredge
The Journey of Desire
The Sacred Romance (w/Brent Curtis)
Captivating (w/Stasi Eldredge)
Elizabeth Elliot
A Chance to Die (bio of Amy Carmichael)
Laura Esquival
Like Water for Chocolate
M.F.K. Fischer
A Map of Another Town
A Considerable Town
Long Ago in France
The Art of Eating (a compilation of her works)
E.M. Forster
A Passage to India
Howard's End
Richard J. Foster
Celebration of Discipline
Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
Charles Frazier
Cold Mountain
Marianne Frederiksson
Hanna's Daughters
Simon's Family
Two Women
Makoto Fujimura
Refractions: a journey in faith, art and culture
Mark Gabriel
Islam and the Jews
Gloria Gaither
He Started the Whole World Singing
(a wonderful Christmas book
with songs, stories, recipes and a music CD)
Rumer Godden
Link to Rumer Godden
The Battle of the Villa Fiorita
The Greengage Summer
The Peacock Spring
The River
Kingfishers Catch Fire
Black Narcissus
Two Under the Indian Sun (autobiography written with her sister, Jon Godden)
Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha
Elizabeth Goudge
Link to Elizabeth Goudge
The Scent of Water
The Dean's Watch
A City of Bells
Island Magic
Towers in the Mist
The White Witch
Green Dolphin Street
The Rosemary Tree
The Child from the Sea
The Bird in the Tree
Pilgrim's Inn
The Heart of the Family
Gentian Hill
Linnets and Valerians
The Little White Horse
The Joy of the Snow (her autobiography)
The Elizabeth Goudge Reader, compiled by Rose Dobbs
Make Believe
A Diary of Prayer
Smokey House
The Blue Hills (aka Henrietta's House)
God so Loved the World, Elizabeth Goudge
Kenneth Grahame
The Wind in the Willows
Graham Greene
Monsingnor Quixote
Travels with My Aunt
Mark Greenside
I'll Never be French (No Matter What I Do)
Douglas H. Gresham
Lenten Lands (about growing up as C.S. Lewis' stepson)
Emilie Griffin
Wonderful and Dark is this Road
Small Surrenders
Madame Jeanne Guyon
Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ
Thelma Hall
Too Deep for Words (rediscovering Lectio Divina)
Helene Hanff
84, Charing Cross Road
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Apple of My Eye
Letter from New York
Jon Hassler
Dear James
A Green Journey
Susan Hill
The Magic Apple Tree
The Christmas Collection
Spirit of the Cotswolds
Julian (of Norwich)
The Complete Julian of Norwich, Fr. John-Julian, OJN
Her Revelations (of Julian of Norwich) was the first book written in English by a woman. She was a fourteenth-century recluse & mystic. This modern translation includes lots of informational background notes. Fascinating!
Jan Karon
The Mitford series about Father Tim
Home to Holly Springs (first of the new Father Tim series)
Thomas R. Kelly
A Testament of Devotion
Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees
When the Heart Waits
Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
Vera Kuschner
Only One Life (bio of Leon Rosenberg)
Anne Lammont
Traveling Mercies
Frank Laubach
Letters by a Modern Mystic
The Game with Minutes
Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God
Madeleine L'Engle
Link to Madeleine L'Engle
Penguins and Golden Calves
Walking on Water
Wrinkle in Time series
A Circle of Quiet
The Summer of the Great Grandmother
The Irrational Season
The Two-Part Invention
The Ordering of Love (collected poems)
C.S. Lewis
Surprised by Joy
Letters to Malcolm
The Weight of Glory
The Chronicles of Narnia
Till We Have Faces
Penelope Lively
City of the Mind
Cleopatra's Sister
The British Museum is Falling Down
The Photograph
David Lodge
Author, Author (biographical novel about Henry James)
Paradise News
Amulya Malladi
A Breath of Fresh Air
Brennan Manning
The Ragamuffin Gospel
The Rabbi's Heart
Frances Mayes
A Year in the World
Under the Tuscan Sun
Bella Tuscany
Peter Mayle
A Year in Provence
Jeanine McMullen
My Small Country Living
A Small Country Living Goes On
Thomas Merton
No Man is an Island
Contemplative Prayer
Risa Miller
Welcome to the Heavenly Heights
Mary Russell Mitford
Our Village (illustrated)
John Mortimer
Summer's Lease
The Summer of a Dormouse
H.V. Morton
In Search of England
In the Steps of the Master
Andrew Murray
Abide in Christ
Kathleen Norris
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
The Cloister Walk
Naomi Shihab Nye
19 Varieties of Gazelle (poems)
Nuala O'Faolain
Are You Somebody?
Almost There
J.I. Packer
Knowing God
Praying (w/Carolyn Nystrom)
Leanne Payne
Heaven's Calling (autobiography)
Myra Perrine
What's Your God Language?
Eugene Peterson
Eat This Book
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places
Rosamunde Pilcher
Coming Home
The Shell Seekers
Christmas with R.P.
....I enjoy most of her novels; good reading
when you need a break that takes you someplace lovely.
Chaim Potok
The Chosen
Davita's Harp
Naomi Ragen
Sotah
Jephte's Daughter
Miss Read
(everything!)
Sheri Reynolds
A Gracious Plenty
Francine Rivers
The Mark of the Lion series
Arundahti Roy
The God of Small Things
Edward Rutherford
London
Sarum
The Princes of Ireland
Lisa Saint Aubin de Teran
A Valley in Italy
The Hacienda (an autobiography)
Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Ruined by Reading
Vikram Seth
A Suitable Boy
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Margery Sharp
Britannia Mews
Cluny Brown
The Gypsy in the Parlor
Luci Shaw
Accompanied by Angels, Poems of the Incarnation
Water My Soul
Lori Smith
A Walk with Jane Austen
Muriel Spark
The Mandelbaum Gate
A Far Cry from Kensington
Elizabeth Spencer
A Light in the Piazza (great little book; wonderful old movie;
but I did not care for what I saw of the recent musical on TV)
Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club
The Bonesetter's Daughter
Alice Taylor
An Irish Country Christmas
Elizabeth Taylor
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
Brock and Bodie Thoene
Zion Legacy series
Zion Covenant series
Gary Thomas
Sacred Pathways
Flora Thompson
Still Glides the Stream
Lark Rise to Candleford
A Country Diary
Phyllis Tickle
The Divine Hours (3 volumes)
What the Land Already Knows
The Graces We Remember
Wisdom in the Waiting
My Father's Prayer
Susan Allen Toth
My Love Affair with England
England as You Like It
England for All Seasons
Adriana Trigiani
Big Stone Gap
Big Cherry Holler
Milk Glass Moon
Home to Big Stone Gap
Agnes Sligh Turnbull
The Gown of Glory
The Bishop's Mantle
Sarah Turnbull
Almost French
Leon Uris
The Haj
Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Enchanted April
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
The Caravaners
Alan Wakabayashi
Kingdom Come
Barbara Webster
The Color of the Country
Rebecca Wells
Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
Little Altars Everywhere
Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth
Elie Wiesel
Night
A Beggar in Jerusalem
Dallas Willard
The Divine Conspiracy
The Spirit of the Disciplines
Renovation of the Heart
Hearing God Through the Year (daily readings for one year)
Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse
Dorothy Wordsworth
The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth
The Illustrated Lakeland Journals
N.T. Wright
Surprised by Hope
Oswald Wynd
The Ginger Tree
5 comments:
I LOVE Miss Read!!!
wow, what a comprehensive list. I don't think I could do something like that. I like many of the same authors and books that you mentioned. I read this weekend that Madeleine Engle just died. I actually met her once. I was in NYC and made the trek out to the church that she attended and found her working in the library. She was very nice and gave me a list of some books, mostly relgious, to read. I was only able to find one and it was very complex and dry, hard reading. She was a brilliant woman.
A lovely list of friends...er...I mean books. They are the same thing, don't you think?
Isn't it tough when your book case gets too full, and "de-acquisition" is required? It has helped me to decide that if I can easily get a book at any library then I *usually* am able to make space by removing that title, knowing it is just a quick drive to go visit the book again at the library, and would find new great titles that way as well.
How do you shelve your books? Author? Color? (actually not a bad way to do it) Subject?
My books are shelved by subject, as I tend to collect non-fiction. The fiction is drifting into subject shelving as well,by humor, romance, childrens etc.
I was appalled to see a magazine layout of a room where the books were shelved with the pages facing out. "A more restful look," the interior designer declared.
I would be going crazy looking at a room full of books shelved spine to the back!
Do you ever write in your books? Secretly I love finding a book in the library where several people have been moved enough to write a comment (good or bad) in the margin.
Sharing a book with a group of friends is more fun if one copy is bought and everyone writes comments as they read along, then the book is passed around one more time.
If we lived in the same town, would that be fun to do? Maybe we could do something like that with bloggers, have everyone who wants to participate sign up, one of us buys the books, then mails around, and each person could both write comments in the book and blog their thoughts.
A cyber book club!
I know there are lots of sites out there that are functioning as book clubs, I just haven't seen one that circulated one hard copy.
Linda, that is so cool - I would have loved to meet her!
Jill, that's the longest message I've ever seen - LOL! Yes, "de-acqusitioning" is tough. About 7 years ago, when we thought we were going to move into a beach front condo (before we changed our minds and decided to stay put and retire early instead)...I was ruthless in cutting back on the books that were mine. Now I wish I had a couple of them back - oh well. But yes, these days (unless I suddenly go crazy, which is very easy for me to do where books are concerned) I try very hard NOT to buy it unless I think I will read it more than once...
Generally, I keep them in order by genre; all travel books together, in order by country; all novels together by author; then I have all my Christmas books together; children's books together; most of my Christian topic books in one place, some are mixed in with CT's...oh, and cookbooks in one place too...
Wish I had ONE bookcase where I could put everything, but between me and CT we have SO many books (he has a LOT more than I do), about half of mine are in the bookcase pictured in this blog, but others are scattered about wherever I can fit them, a shelf here, a shelf there.
Books placed on shelves facing out - I don't see how that could possibly be restful! That designer obviously never read a book - ha!
I do write in my books. Actually, I draw borders in pencil around passages that speak to me. Once in a while I'll write a note, but not often. I used to underline sentences, but I found that I can find things easier framed by a border instead of all underlined...
I've never run across a book that more than one person has made a comment in....but maybe you are better positioned for that, being a librarian? I would certainly pay attention if I DID find such a book; I'd be curious to know what others had to say.
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