Elizabeth’s Top 40

Elizabeth is our main book buyer and inventory manager. Here’s her list:

Forty Books – In no particular order.

1. Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine – The best first paragraph in a book. Ever.
2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
3. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: I reread the Anne series every couple of years. I still cry when Matthew dies. Every time.
4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga:  Modern India as it has never been written before.
5. The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon: Best child narrator voice I’ve ever read.
7. Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Keenan:  A Faulkner-like collection of connected short stories set in fictional Tims Creek.
8. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner: I struggled with this book from start to finish. It’s dense, difficult, and beautiful.
9. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: The hero of those of us, like me, who have spent several years in food service.
10. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
11. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
12. I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson: One of the only books I’ve read to make me laugh out loud.
13. Secret History by Donna Tartt: A murder mystery made no less intense by the fact that the murderer is revealed on the first page.
14. Bee Season by Myla Goldberg:  So much better than the movie. Trust me.
15. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
16. Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi: Lisbeth Salander’s got nothing on Zahavi’s Bella. Sadly out of print.
17. God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
18. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates:  Mad Men without the comedy.
19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
20. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: It took me two attempts to get into this book but I now count it as one of my favorites.
21. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
22. The Complete Maus by Art Speigelman
23. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote: Literary nonfiction at its best.
24. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut: My first Vonnegut, pilfered from a box of my mom’s paperbacks from college. I felt so grown up.
25. People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia – Not being a fan of postmodern lit, I thought I’d hate this book but Plascencia hooked me.
26. How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman: It’s right there in the title. This is the only cookbook you need.
27. The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
28. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
29. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
30. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach: I will never forget reading this at coffee shops and getting stares while I giggled uncontrollably.
31. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
32. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
33. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
34. Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? by Dr. Seuss:  My mom and dad memorized this after repeated readings when I was a kid. I’ve now memorized it from reading it to my kiddo.
35. Empire Falls by Richard Russo:  I still dream about the characters in this book. Russo’s best.
36. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson:  Booked my first trip to Chicago moments after finishing this book.
37. Feminism is For Everybody by bell hooks:  The book I gave my entire family to explain why I was becoming a Women’s Studies major. The most beautiful and concise defense of feminism.
38. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris: My best friend gave me this book during a rough patch. It was the best gift ever.
39. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling:  I’m a sucker for the Sirius Black as Harry’s godfather plot line.
40. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender: Quirky, magical, beautiful coming of age story. Bender is amazing.