Top 25 Books of All-Time

People often ask me what books I love or for recommendations. So finally I decided to list them out.

In no particular order...

1. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, Madeleine L'Engle.
This book introduced me to a God I could believe in.

2. Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery.
I've read over 23 of her books and still looking for more.

3. A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren.
Second only to the Bible, this book changed my life more than any other.

4. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
Exquisitely painful and ultimately satisfying.

5. A Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson.
I never knew a book could make me cry until I read this.

6. Jacob Have I Loved, Katharine Paterson.
Sibling rivalry at its best and worst, she does character development of the highest caliber.

7. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle.
Meg Murray, Charles Wallace and the tesseract; this book launched my love for L'Engle. The trilogy is A Swiftly Tilting Planet and The Wind in the Door. Also see, A Severed Wasp and A House Like a Lotus.

8. A Live Coal in the Sea, Madeleine L'Engle.
A powerful treatise on sin and redemption.

9. The Pilot's Wife, Anita Shreve.
Profound and mesmerizing. There's a great quote in here that has stayed with me about children and their non-resiliency. I'll look it up and get back to you.

10. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath.
She writes with clarity and a very personal style about cracking up when everything seems to be going right. Too bad she stuck her head in an unlit oven, I'd like to write her a letter and now I can't.

11. Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller.
Because I have nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality and finally someone wrote a book about it. Plus, it was written by Don Miller and I'm Dawn Miller. Does it get more crazy than that?

12. To Own a Dragon, Donald Miller.
A tesimony for all who are fatherless; it has helped me realize I have to pay my car insurance and keep a job even when I don't want to. Or maybe I'll just write books...

13. The Bible, God.
I guess this one should be on here. It still feels like a should even though I do love reading it, the stories, the adventures and the love letters. I'm waiting for the day that it won't feel like a should.

14. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
Because no one has ever seen life walking around in my shoes; and this is why I write.

15. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith.
If you've never been really poor, this will help you. It was a little too close to home for me at the time, but still great writing.

16. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott.
If you didn't grow up in a world of women, you need to read this. A world of girlhood imagination and girlhood dreams. Also see, Little Men.

17. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte.
What it means to fall in love with an older man.

18. Hamlet, William Shakespeare.
You don't have to be a tortured soul to love this tortured soul.

19. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry.
The terror of Nazi-held Denmark through the eyes of Annemarie Johannesen.

20. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbit.
A fable that has stayed with me.

21. Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls.
If I loved furry pets, this one would have taught me how.

22. Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott.
She's gritty and real and a Democrat.

23. The Center of Everything, Laura Moriarty.
When you find out that nowhere is the center of everything.

24. The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery.
I loved it. Read it 25 times.

25. Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott.
How to write.

26. The Year of Pleasures, Elizabeth Berg.
Great book I read recently. The best of the ones I've read by her.