10 Day You Challenge: four books

(ten secrets / nine loves / eight fears / seven wants / six places / five foods)

This one is crazy easy...and also very hard.  I love reading and I love books (real ones, not fake electronic ones (and especially fake electronic ones that cost more than the real ones)), and while I've got a pretty clear-cut list of favorites, there are also so many books that I love that didn't make the list.

{Click the pictures to go to Amazon.}

1.  The Count of Monte Cristo.  My favorite book of all time.  I try to read this once a year.  I even have a favorite edition.  I still haven't gotten around to reading the complete mammoth of an unabridged version, but I'm going to...someday!

I love you, Lowell Blair.  Thanks for the fabulous translation and abridgement.

2.  I, Claudius (and Claudius the God).  A bit of a cheat, but you can't have one without the other.  As long as you can keep the all of the names straight (and enjoy trying to make sense of the their incest), this book is so good.  Another one of my all-time faves - it was gifted to me by a friend in college and it took me a really long time to finally read it, but once I started, I couldn't put it down.  And the sequel is just as good.

Loved you so much I named my dog after you.

3.  Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.  Not a bit, but a huge cheat.  My dad got me hooked on these books and we both love them.  When I was down in New Orleans this past fall we were texting each other really dorky jokes about the vampires (because that's where some of the live, DUH).  If I had to pick a favorite, I'd probably pick The Vampire Lestat.  I still haven't finished them all yet (dropped off right before Merrick), but I will say that Rice's work (including her other novels) isn't for everyone.  She tends to ramble and delve into philosophical prose for pages and pages.  Still, if you want to read about cool vampires and have some patience, then it's definitely worth a read.

AWESOME

4.  The Three Musketeers.  Another favorite of mine because it's just fun, and as a former English major who abandoned that path because it sucked all the fun out of reading, fun reads are the best reads.

Lowell Blair again...told you he was awesome.

Runners Up
The Shopaholic series
Rebecca
Any book about language
Sherlock Holmes

Other books that aren't favorites but I've really enjoyed include:
One Day (highly recommend this one)
Novels by Margaret George
The Sex Lives of Cannibals (hilarious travel memoir)
Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde

Okay, how about you?  I'm always looking for new book recommendations, so please share!