Cheri's Top . . . 11?

Twelve, if you count both Cather books. And there were more I wanted to include (St. Maybe, Because of Winn-Dixie, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Bean Trees, The Secret Life of Bees, Cold Sassy Tree). I’m sure this list will change—the world is too full of great books, most of which I probably haven’t read yet. So anyway, here we go—

LOTR How could this not be on my list? As Lisa said, no fictional world has ever been realized so completely as Middle Earth. And Tolkien’s just as deft with his powerful themes—hope, friendship, courage, faith, loyalty, goodness. Most of all, I love the characters. I can’t imagine life without Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, Gandalf. My heart bursts a little every time I think about Sam’s unfaltering commitment to Frodo and to their journey.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen). You can’t beat the repartee. And I love Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth—but maybe that’s ‘cause I haven’t read Persuasion : )

My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Willa Cather may be my favorite author. Both stories set a small (but great) human being against a vast wilderness. Each book is like a stack of paintings, showing the same subjects (person and landscape) in different moods, lighting, times. You see Antonia through the eyes of a guy who has loved her his whole life, so it’s sort of a ballad to the spirited, unfaltering woman who builds her life on the Nebraska plains. In Archbishop, a simple priest gently plants, over a long 40 years, the seeds of his faith in the harsh New Mexico desert. Both books show that life works out and is good in the long-long-run, and both characters are people I’m so glad to know.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith). I love it for the details, the little perfectly real tidbits of life in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. And Francie is so spirited and insightful, optomistic and resourceful in difficult times.

Watership Down (Richard Adams) worked for me as a rousing quest for home by a bunch of bunnies, characters I grew to care about in their own right, but it is also a large-scale allegory about leadership and community. Plus, Hazel, the rabbits’ visionary, self-sacrificing leader, has plenty of flaws to make him endearingly real.

War and Peace (Tolstoy). I read this the month that I lived with Eric’s parents just before we got married. I didn’t have much else to do while Eric was at work (Auburn didn’t offer the same employment opportunities or visitor attractions that I found during my month in D.C.), but I loved every minute of this book. I remember nothing of the story except that I was utterly captivated, especially by the growth of the characters. During the weeks it took to read, I lived inside the story.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Anne Fadiman, nonfiction) is the poignant tragedy of an American Hmong child diagnosed with epilepsy, whose well-meaning doctors and parents profoundly disagreed about the meaning of her illness and its treatment. Fadiman manages to warmly, respectfully, and thoroughly portray two very different cultures. Though the impact of the story is in the emotions and characters, I also learned tons about the Hmong in Laos during the Vietnam War, about their transplant to America, and about their culture.

Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie). The writing is so incredibly delicious it begs to be read aloud, which we did just last year. If you haven’t read it, set aside any Disneyfied notions of Peter Pan and dive in. The real thing is much wittier, darker (in an oddly lighthearted way), and quirkier. The real Hook is more sinister, the real Pan less charming. And be sure to read at least some parts out loud.

I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith). I stayed up until 3 AM one morning to finish this delightful first-romance story. The witty, self-effacing, insightful, fanciful, and completely authentic Cassandra may be my favorite narrator ever. And her family of quirky bohemians is utterly irreplaceable.

A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr, nonfiction). This page-turner is also a great education in legal proceedings, environmental science, and the slipperiness of medical causation. Written almost like a novel, it’s about a lawsuit over a leukemia cluster in Woburn, MA that was almost certainly caused by industrial dumping.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). Actually, I need to read this one again. As one of the first “classics” I ever read, it stands out as an important book in my life, and even after all these years I can’t forget Atticus Finch’s quiet strength or Scout’s rascally honesty.