Your 5 favorite books

[Will]

What are you 5 favorite books of all time?

I always like asking bloggers this question, because great writers usually learned from reading great books.

With a crowd as diverse as Wise Bread, I suspect it will be a pretty interesting list.

Here's my 5:

• Speaker for the Dead
• Silmarillion
• World According to Garp
• A Beautiful Mind
• Common Ground

(This is in no way a shameless attempt to get more info for Wise Bread's Secret Santa.)

[Julie Rains]

These are not necessarily my top 5 but some that come to mind and highly recommended by me.

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (and nearly anything by him b/c of his logic and dry wit)
The Kite Runner
Two Old Women (Alaskan legend retold)
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (told in the language and from the perspective of a high-functioning autistic teenager; the chapters are in order of Prime Numbers only)

P.S.

I thought it was a holiday exchange and not a Secret Santa.

[Lynn]

(in no particular order):

The Fountainhead
The Kite Runner
East of Eden
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Earthsea Cycle series (there are 6 books, but all really short...so i'm counting as one)

[Linsey Knerl]

P.S.

I thought it was a holiday exchange and not a Secret Santa.[/quote]

You have the info for who you are giving a gift to... you won't know who has gotten your name until you get it... (Does that make sense?)

If you have questions, PM' me.

[Linsey Knerl]

These are my 5 (only 5?) in no particular order:

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus - John R. Cross
They Like Jesus But Not the Church (Insights from emerging generations) - Dan Kimball

[Sarah Winfrey]

I can't pick just 5 so I'm going to cheat (just warning you!)

The Miles Vorkosigan books, by Lois McMaster Bujold (if you make me pick just one, it would be Memory, though it's not as powerful without the rest of the series behind it)

The Return of the King

Cry, the Beloved Country

Girl Meets God

The Brothers Karamazov

[Will]

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

A lot of people I respect list that book as one of their favorites.

I thought it was a holiday exchange and not a Secret Santa.

Maybe people have different definitions of Secret Santa. For me, Secret Santa means you know who you are giving the gift to, but don't know who your benefactor is going to be.

The Fountainhead

My favorite part is when Peter showed Howard his drawings and asked if they were any good. Dominique is a total mystery to me. I totally don't get that character.

The Jungle - Upton Sinclair

I'm glad you linked to that book Linsey. I've always thought the book is nothing but descriptions of how dirty the slaughterhouses were. I had no idea it was also a broader social commentary about worker's rights. Thanks!

The Return of the King

I love this part: "Thus came Aragorn, son of Arathron, Elessar, Isildur's heir...."

I get a bit chocked up every time I think about the Seven-Starred standard (yes I'm a big nerd).

[Julie Rains]

Originally Posted by Will

Maybe people have different definitions of Secret Santa. For me, Secret Santa means you know who you are giving the gift to, but don't know who your benefactor is going to be.

Here's my version of Secret Santa: give multiple small gifts over the course of a couple of weeks; then have a big get-together where you guess who your Secret Santa is in order to get your big gift.

I've taken care of everything already but wanted to make sure I wasn't spoiling the fun for my recipient.

[Will]

have a big get-together where you guess who your Secret Santa is

The guessing thing wouldn't work for me, since I'm giving you all 8x10 glossy head shots for Christmas.

[Linsey Knerl]

Originally Posted by Will

The guessing thing wouldn't work for me, since I'm giving you all 8x10 glossy head shots for Christmas.

Please, please, please... let them be autographed!!