Books I Love

David Kanigan started it and Kurt Harden tagged me. David's ground rules are:

If you choose to participate, the rules of the award are to: 1) Nominate 5-10 bloggers and let your recipients know. (2) Post The Booker Award picture. (3) Share your top 5 books of all time.

Write a list like this and a mere five minutes later some other nominees will come to mind. I can't keep to five but I will restrict it to novels. My fiction list is:

1. The entire Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. This is really one long novel set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. It has my highest recommendation. I'm about to re-read the series.
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy [I prefer the Ann Dunnigan translation]. I've never read a writer who knew people so well. Brilliant.
3. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Marvelous. Has one of the greatest female villains in literature. Stunningly good.
4. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. How will the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce be resolved? As in all novels by Dickens, the characters are memorable.
5. Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. This is a great introduction to Trollope's novels. If you like Dickens, give Trollope a try. Intrigue in the church and a lot of humor.
6. The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad are grand characters and you'll be transported to a riverbank. Be sure to get the edition illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.
7. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The story of an eccentric to be treasured.
8. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. This may be the Great American Novel.
9. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. This tale of a barber in a small town is simply beautiful.
10. Restoration by Rose Tremain. Amid the plague, the Fire of London, and the granting and removal of royal favors, a worthless physician is transformed.

I'll tag: Rick Georges, Tanmay Vora, Rowan Manahan, Mary Jo Asmus, Wally Bock, Jeff Kopito.