#2, or Favorite Books of All Time.

List #2 is on deck now, pretty much pumped for his chance at bat. Another top ten:

My Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time, in No Particular Order

First off: I'm an AVID reader. I read EVERYTHING. So this took a while to put together in some sort of logical form. But here goes.

1. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

        Sarah Dessen, in general, is one of my favorite authors. I've got every one of her books in paperback (because they all have to match). Just Listen is one of hers that I can read OVER and OVER again. It's YA (as is most of my library) but there's nothing wrong with that.

2. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

        Yes. I'm one of THOSE. These, I have all in hardback. It took me about six months to get them all. Hardbacks are expensive, y'all.

3. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

        I. Love. This. Series. I recommend it all the time, to anyone who asks (and some who don't), because it's so good. I could go on and on and on about the Uglies series. But... I won't. Read them.

4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

        See above. Different style, same idea. Hunger Games is, granted, vastly more popular, and - since there's a movie - will be even more well-known.

5. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

        It's a 5-book sequence, complete with Good, Evil, magic, and British accents. Read them, but don't watch the movie (it sucked).

6. Rosehaven by Catherine Coulter

        Hey! First grown-up book! It's good. Romance, hatred, revenge - it's all in this one, plus it's a historical novel (set not long after the Crusades, if I'm not completely mistaken) AND there's a marten (see: stoat [see: weasel]) who is a strong supporting character.

7. The Shining by Stephen King

        Got this one for my birthday one year. Sat under a tree on campus reading it; every time someone saw me they scared me. My boyfriend at the time found it hilarious. My heart? Not so much.

8. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

        Back to the world of YA fiction! The entire Mortal Instruments series (and The Infernal Devices, the "prequel" series) should be on this list. Yummy guys. Magic. Vampires, werewolves, faeries, warlocks, angels, demons.... Must... Continue.

9. Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

        They're phenomenal. They're really quick reads, because they're actually a little younger than YA. But they can be read and enjoyed by adults - perhaps even more than the age group they seem to be geared towards - because they can provoke a lot of thought. 

10. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

        I was given these - in a single volume - for my 13th birthday. I. Was. Ob. Sessed. I read them about a gajillion times between my August birthday and the release of the first movie that December. I wore leather pants and pretended I was an elf in the woods. It was really really bad. :/