by Jennie

I’m always wishing I had more time for reading. I try to plan reading time sometimes; if I have a day off I’ll tell myself that I’m going to do nothing but read all day. It doesn’t usually pan out, though – real life has a way of intruding, with its errands, crisises, and the occasional unplanned nap.

I got to thinking about how glorious it would be if I were told by my boss to put all my work on hold; I had to read five books before moving on to any other tasks. What books would I pick? There are dozens and dozens of books I want to read; if I had to pick five, they would probably be:

1) Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

2) A biography of Lord Byron (I find him luridly fascinating)

3) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

4) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

5) The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Now, the above list is a) somewhat random (ask me another day and my answer might include five different books) and b) heavy on “important” books – it’s not like I do nothing but read Great Literature. It’s just that those other books – the light mysteries and gossipy memoirs – seem more interchangeable; I don’t think it will matter in the end if I read one over another. Whereas the books on the list above are all books I want to read at some point, along with a few hundred others. (And yes, #2 is a cheating a bit, since I don’t have an actual title in mind. I like my historical biographies to have a nice balance between dirt and substance.)

So. What’s on your list?