4 books {that changed my life}

4 books?? i can only choose 4? the literature major/passionate writer/wordnerd of a bookworm in me aches to list about 100 books you need to read tomorrow, so this is quite the little challenge to choose 4 faves.

1. the Bible. guide for life, book of ultimate love and sacrifice and hope, the one constant i can read and re-read and seek out time and time again. stranded on a deserted island, this would be one thing i’d bring, without question.along with a boy who also loved the Bible, and running shoes, and sunscreen,and bathing suits…

2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. i read this in high school and remember thinking my entire world was different now that i knew Scarlett and fell in love with Rhett the way we so wish she would have: unselfishly, unconditionally, utterly perfectly. i remember laying in the living room crying so hard while reading this book that my mom came in and suggested i take a break. it consumed me, this story. i was there, living her life, wearing her ball gowns and batting my eyes and making men fall hopelessly in love with me during a time of utter tragedy in our country’s history. only i would have kept him — of this i’m certain.

i really need to read this again.

3. White Oleander by Janet Fitch. no book has ever haunted me the way this unthinkably raw debut novel has. no prose has ever taken on the wings of pure poetry and nosedived itself beneath my skin until it sears through my veins and dances behind my eyes at night. no words have ever danced alive on the page for me with such aching, heart-wrenching glory; no other story has ever stabbed me just-so in the heart. because of both her beautiful, poignant writing style and the way she crafts her characters, this book will forever remain iconic in my eyes. it’s bittersweet and tragic; it’s wondrous and lovely; it’s hopeful, despite all suggestions of the world as such a lonely, arbitrary place. it’s incredible.

4. The Great Gatsby by the incredible F. Scott Fitzgerald. i feel hopelessly enamored with this story in 10th grade English class when my eyes were first opened to the wonder that is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s storytelling. i adore his portrayal of the outlandish Jazz Age/Roaring 20s in New York City. he wrote that his desire in crafting this novel was to write  “something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned,” and i’d say he absolutely achieved that goal. it’s not a love story, but its very pulse aches with an unrequited love; it is a period piece, a story of decadence and the elusive construction — or deconstruction — of the American Dream; a tale of recklessness and debauchery and loneliness, smack dab in the midst of revelry. it’s a  commentary on chasing the wind, and it’s beautiful in its sheer ability to deliver characters who say things like:

because people like us, well — we read that, and the word embed themselves into our being because we know, as we think of that person’s face, that we wish that, too.

i can write my own commentaries on the books i love all the day long, so i’ll stop before this becomes a novella.

Your turn! Share your fave books with me.

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