20 Most Read Books

Since I've been doing the brain-fog shuffle lately (really, the number of unfinished posts hanging around in draft is embarrassing) I decided to take the easy way out and post a list of the books I've read most often.

These aren't necessarily the books I'd consider the best - if I could even decide upon such a thing - but the ones I've picked up again and again over the years, whether because they are simply enjoyable or are interesting on some other level. A few are geared toward younger readers, but I continue to enjoy them as much (or more) as an adult.

Also, in keeping with the "not hard" spirit of this post, the books in that photo are truly random. I  picked  up a couple of armloads of books without looking and plunked them down. They aren't even arranged, because if I'd started doing that, I would have had to coordinate them by color or size or alphabetize them or whatever, and I ain't got the stamina for that. If there's anything embarrassing in that stack, it will just have to stay. :p

The list (in no particular order)

1. Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Boyfriend School - Sarah Bird
3.A Dark-Adapted Eye - Ruth Rendell as Barbara Vine
4.Lolita -Vladimir Nabokov
5.Jazz - Toni Morrison
6.Journey To Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda
7.The Willowdale Handcar - Edward Gorey (this is a picture book, but it counts as far as this list goes.)
8. The Romance Reader - Pearl Abraham
9.Paradise - Elena Castedo
10. Wild At Heart - Barry Gifford
11.Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
12.The October Country- Ray Bradbury
13.Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
14. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
15.The House With A Clock In Its Walls - John Bellairs
16. Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
17. The Mothman Prophecies- John Keel
18. Tales From Gavagan's Bar - Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp
19. Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones (a close contest with A Sudden Wild Magic, by the same author)
20. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

 There are a few short stories that are favorites, as well. (Actually there are a lot, but I want to keep this list short)

1.That Evening Sun - William Faulkner
2.Elvenbrood - Tanith Lee
3.The Vampire Lover - Tanith Lee
4.Simon's Wife - Tanith Lee (probably should have just made a Tanith Lee section, eh?)
5.High Mysterious Union - Ruth Rendell

Rest assured, this is not my only reading material (I've read more than half of The Telegraph's "100 novels everyone should read" list, and plenty more that's not) I read history, philosophy and scholarly works. I'm not scared of books, even big fat ones with double columns. I'll even cheerfully (after a fashion) take on post-modernism. But I suppose, for good or ill, this list signifies my literary comfort zone. 

...even when it's uncomfortable ;)