Why, oh why did someone have to limit this category to five books? Any bookworm worth their salt knows that is almost impossible to categorize, and to limit yourself to so few favorites if you truly love to read. Even listing my favorite five authors is next to impossible, if you want to know the truth.
I’ll catch flak for this on my comments section, but what the heck. I’m listing what I can honestly say are five books that are the most dog-eared on my bookshelf. Then I’m listing the other five that I can never put down again once I retrieve them from under the bed or from one of my overstuffed storage trunks(full of books, of course) out in my garage.
This is such a wimpy way to earn MS points, someone should really smack my hand! I feel like so little writing skill is going into this, all I’m really doing is hopping on a soapbox and broadcasting to the world which books I can’t do without:
Killashandra, by Anne McCaffrey: My gosh, but this woman can write! Anne McCaffrey is, in my opinion, one of the world’s first true’fantasy’ science fiction writers, and one of the best female ones by far. You wouldn’t think that a woman that used to act in Shakespearean productions onstage and that owns a horse named Mr. Magoofey would have such a wonderful knack for ships that sing, or dragons that breathe fire.
Killashandra is the follow-up to Crystal Singer; Crystal Line is the third in this series. Killashandra finds herself aching for a vacation after months of crystal mining on the planet Ballybran, and she’s pretty tired of her fading romance with Lanzecki, her old flame from the first novel. When her services as a crystal tuner and installer are commissioned by a hostile planet, Killashandra finds herself kidnapped and marooned on a tropical island, only to later fall in love with her kidnapper. And what do you know, he has perfect pitch, just the qualification to become a Crystal Singer!
Dragon’s Gold, by Robert E. Margroff and Piers Anthony: I love anything by either of these two authors. Robert E. Margroff also used to frequently pen Conan the Barbarian novels.
Kelvin is the round-eared son of his rural town’s local psychic, and one of the only round-eared people on an otherwise pointy-eared planet. His sister Jon is jealous of his ears and of his manhood, and she constantly dresses like a boy and cusses like a sailor.
According to a local prophesy, Kelvin is destined to rid the land of a’scar’ of corrupt government. Obstacles that he must surmount are a half-brother that he didn’t know he had, dragons that are as prolific as cats and dogs on Earth, and a really funny highwayman and’scale thief’ named Cheeky Jack(dragon scales are made from gold).
Sequels to this book include Serpent’s Silver, Chimera’s Copper, and Orc’s Opal.
Disappearing Acts, by Terry McMillan: This is a hard book to read, but once you start it, you can’t put it down. Zora is a music teacher living in New York that has just about had it with her epilepsy, her past boyfriends, and her weight issues. Franklin is a frequently unemployed construction worker that has an artistic way with carpentry and an ex-wife that he can’t stand. They have nothing in common but a world of pain in their pasts, not to mention a passion for Scrabble.
As frustrated as I became with Franklin’s chauvinistic perspectives on things, his dialogue was so well-written and funny that I had to like him. Zora’s relationships with her female friends in this book mimic those in Waiting to Exhale, another McMillan novel(read the book; don’t bother with the mediocre film). There are moments of violence and heartbreak that you wish didn’t have to happen in this novel, but the story wouldn’t be the same without them.
Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol: The best Russian satire ever written. If you think Crime and Punishment is a delicious read but just too darned long, read this one instead.
The story follows a scheming, bourgeois man without title roaming the Russian countryside, buying up the dead serfs(not their bodies, just their certificates of ownership) of wealthy nobles and landowners to increase his social status, as well as to win the right to buy a parcel of land of his own. Visual metaphors and decadent food scenes abound in this lush and humorous novel. You will crave buttered pancakes after reading this.
Heaven, Texas, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Easily the best romantic comedy I have ever read, just by token of some of the silly things that keep happening to the poor heroine, Gracie Snow. This is the sequel to It Had to Be You, and Bobby Tom Denton, the Quarterback from the Stars, is now retired from a knee injury and trying his hand at action movies.
Gracie goes from working at retirement home to playing babysitter to Bobby Tom in an effort to coerce him into arriving at the set of his new movie on time. Along the way, Gracie is mistaken for the stripper at his house party, gets dragged through truck stops and sweaty bars, and ends up fired when she misses her deadline. So to make it up to her, Bobby Tom wrangles a job for Gracie as a gopher and production assistant for the movie’s leading lady, promising to turn Gracie into a’Texas wildcat.’ He succeeds, she ends up being a knockout, yatta yatta yatta, you know the story.but it’s so fraught with embarrassing incidents and satisfying subplots, particularly Bobby’s mother falling in love with her dead husband’s high school rival, and Bobby Tom’s enduring hatred for the young quarterback that replaced him.
As for my other five favorites that I can’t do without, I will keep it brief. This list is still TOO, too short.
TRON by Brian Daley
The Terminator screenplay novel; the original story was written by Randall Frakes
Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey
My Year of Meats, by Ruth L. Ozeki, or the Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan; these two books tie for tenth.