I love to read. Some of my earliest and fondest memories involve being curled up with a book and my imagination. I would wait every summer for the mailman to deliver the books my mother ordered from Weekly Reader.

Now I browse the shelves at the bookstore for those verbal treasures. While I can appreciate the convenience of e-books, I still prefer to hold books with bound pages that I can turn.

I have tried to instill a love of reading in the children in my life. Gifts for birthdays and Christmas always include a book. Reading encourages children to use their imagination taking them on all kinds of journeys. It is like a movie that plays in your mind.

It is difficult to choose what my favorite books are, but I am going to list a few that I think you should read:

"Night" by Elie Wiesel

This is poignant story told by a master story teller. This story had me on an emotional roller coaster. If you haven't read it, you should make it next on your reading list.

“...I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.”
- Elie Wiesel

"The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

I loved the entire series! The satire about money, emotions, big corporations and governments had me laughing and thinking. What more could you ask?

"The Dante Club" by Matthew Pearl

If you like stories that blend a fact and fiction you will like this story as much as I did. It moves a little slowly at the beginning, but after a few pages it grabs you and you can't put this book down! Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell form the Dante Club. They get together to help Longfellow translate Dante Alighieri's Commedia Divina, but end up investigating a gruesome murder instead.

I've just added the second book in the series to my reading list - The Dante Chamber!

"A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L’Engle

My fourth-grade teacher introduced this book to me. She would read a portion of it every afternoon. I have shared it with all of the children I know. I was so excited when I heard they had made it into a movie. I hope the movie does justice to the book.

"The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

This story is based on the last lecture given by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, after being told he had pancreatic cancer. This book is truly inspirational! This was a book I took my time reading - I wanted to make it last.

"I Feel Bad About My Neck" by Nora Ephron

I love Nora Ephron's work - both her movies and books. In this book, she shares her thoughts about aging and life and has you laughing about it all.

"The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde

I enjoyed Fforde’s Thursday Next Series of seven books. Fforde brings an alternate universe to life in which our favorite fictional characters are quite real. Book World is a universe in which characters from our favorite stories exist. Of course, readers like you and I are totally unaware of this world. Thursday Next is a literary detective from this world.

She travels between the two universes maintaining the stability of stories and investigating crimes. In "The Eyre Affair" Thursday Next s trying to save Jane Eyre from being murdered. It is hilarious! There is a website devoted to Fforde's work and it is just as funny as his stories.

"Einstein’s Dreams" by Alan Lightman

I used to have posters of Einstein hanging in my room. I thought he was such an interesting man. This is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein when he was working in the patent office. It is interesting to imagine what a man like Einstein might have been dreaming when he was working on the Theory of Relativity.

"Cat’s Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut

I love everything Vonnegut wrote, but this has to be my favorite. I am a lover of words and that love affair is at its climax when I read Vonnegut's work. The way he expresses himself - his satire, cynicism and idealism is unlike anyone else. His writing has influenced my own work. I recently added a collection of his essays to my reading list - A Man Without a Country. I know I won't be disappointed.

"Sophie’s World" by Jostein Gaarder

I've always enjoyed reading books that not only entertain, but also make me think. Sophie's World is a story about a young girl who receives letters that ask questions we've all asked..."Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" are only two of the questions that young Sophie explores as she receives letters from her philosophical pen pal. This is a fun look at philosophy.

"The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson

This is another series. I moved into an apartment and found this first book in the series in a basket left there by the previous tenant. I decided to check it out and was hooked. I found myself waiting for each book in the series. After you finish the first set of books, I recommend reading The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (the last set of books), too.

This list is far from a complete list of my favorite books. In one of my many moves, my nephew said he felt like he was moving the public library. I hope you find a new treasure on this list that you will enjoy as much as I do. As I look over the list and see how many books are a part of a series I realize how much I like "the wait". The anxiety that accompanies wondering what is next. I'm off to Barnes and Noble to look for the next gem in my collection. I hope I see you there!