Honk If You Like to Read!

Oh, do I love to read. And I always have. I thank my mom for this. She read to me and supplied me with lots of books. She signed me up for a book delivery service when I was little and I couldn't wait for those books to arrive every few weeks. I zoomed my way through the Little Golden Books, Disney stories, Richard Scarry and Babar, then through the Little House Books, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and favorite authors such as Roald Dahl, E.B. White, Paula Danziger, Judy Blume, and even (dear Lord) V.C. Andrews.

In high school, I discovered The Classics. And I LOVED them. I worked my way through The Good Earth, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Count of Monte Cristo...

At some point in my twenties I discovered fun novels: John Grisham, Michael Crichton, etc. And then I read a little book called Bridget Jones's Diary. And I loved it. I had found the yet unnamed genre of Chick-Lit and I wanted more. It was hard to find at my library, but it helped me branch out to other novels such as Cold Sassy Tree and authors such as Maeve Binchy and Rosamund Pilcher.

Now chick-lit is everywhere, but I'm very picky. Bad chick-lit reminds me of those books we read in high school like the Sweet Valley High series: I hated that you knew three pages into those books exactly how they'd end: the mean girl (usually named Jessica) will lose the guy and the nice girl (never named Beth. Hmph.) will get the guy and will become homecoming queen, achieve clear skin, and get all A's. In bad chick-lit, you know by page 3 that the bossy anorexic woman (usually named Victoria) will lose the guy and the slightly chubby, quirky woman (still not Beth) will get the guy and will get married, achieve skinniness, and get promoted. Well-written chick-lit is funny, its characters have depth, the dialogue is real and...well, yeah...the nice girl will still get the guy. But that's okay. Some terrific chick-lit authors I love: Helen Fielding (of course), Jennifer Weiner, Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, Jane Green, and Meg Cabot.

My list of favorites (though this list is incomplete and inter-changeable):
1. Jane Eyre-I read this every year.
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn-If there was chick-lit in the early 1900's, this would be it. A beautiful, heartbreaking book about Francie and life in turn of the century Brooklyn.
3. Gone With the Wind- this novel is about 1,000 pages long, and I find myself looking at my page numbers frequently, and saying to myself, "Yay! I still have about 600 to go!" I hated putting it down.
4. Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (or really any book by Fannie Flagg. Yes, the Fannie Flagg of Match Game fame...she's a funny writer with an eye for language/dialogue and her books just make me feel good).
5. Olive Kitteridge-I just read this about two weeks ago and I can't stop thinking about it. The author, Elizabeth Strout, has achieved perfection with this novel. PERFECTION I tell you!
6. Little Women-I read this for the first time as a teenager and (spoiler alert!) could not believe that Beth died. Seriously! Main characters don't die! Besides that, I just wanted to be a March sister and put on plays with them, and starve with them, and cuddle with Marmee, and I totally thought Laurie and Jo belonged together, not with Stupid Amy, and OH POOR BETH!
7. Jen Lancaster (author)-all of her books are hilarious and written in a new genre I'll call "Expanded Blogging" because her books read like a blog, but with longer chapters than blog posts. I find myself laughing out loud when I read her, or giggling so much I shake the bed and wake up my snoring husband who's NOT a fan of Jen Lancaster because she's such a threat to his good night's sleep.

Okay, well, there are so many more I could recommend such as Angela's Ashes, The Red Tent, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and my beloved Shopaholic series, and of course the Harry Potters, and anything by Maeve Binchy, and...

But it's late and I've got a book to read (right now The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar-which is definitely not going to make this list, but which I will finish because it is not terrible and I'm learning a lot about the Romanov family's last days) so I think I will leave this list for now.

Happy Reading!