multi-tasking

I just completed the Facebook challenge to jot down 15 books that will always stick with you. Since I'm a busy working woman, I figured I might as well turn it into a blog post, too. (Besides, I have heard that there are actually one or two individuals out there who read my blog but don't have a facebook. Incredible, no?)

Anyway...here's my list:

1. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. Still, only, always, ever my very very favorite book.

2. Middlemarch by George Eliot. I read this book the summer after my junior year of college and it mirrored my life back to me. It was almost scary.

3. The Once and Future King by TH White. I was mesmerized by the way this book applied a very modern writing style to the Arthurian legend.

4. Gone with the Wind. Memorable mainly because I took a whole day off school to spend 10 hours straight reading it.

5. The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier. Of course I also adore DuMaurier's 'Rebecca,' but I would have to say that 'The House on the Strand' with its bizarre twin themes of time travel and drug addiction made a more lasting impression.

6. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I glanced at the first page just to see what this book was about, and before I knew it I was 3 hours and 150 pages further.

7. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. I am not sure if this book itself is so great. But it will always stick with me because I associate it with my wonderful vacation in Paris in 2006. 'The Devil' has been lying on the landing of my hotel for 3 days, so I made discreet inquiries at reception when I checked out before absconding with it. I am very glad I had such a good book to divert me, or I would have spent the entire train ride back to Holland crying that I was being taken away from the City of Light.

8. Confessions of Augustine. Still can't believe such an ancient story is so personal and relatable.

9. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Tja...just a fantastic, insightful work all round.

10. The Law by Bastiat. I'd always been a free market conservative, but this book made it all crystal clear in my mind.

11. The Toverketting. A fantastic Dutch children's book about an enchanted necklace.

12. Madieke van het Roode Huis by Astrid Lindgren. Another children's book that shaped my idea of the kind of person I wanted to be.

13. Crime and Punishment. The ultimate thriller. Couldn't put it down!

14. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. I think this story will stick with me mainly because the misogynism of Chinese society made me so angry.

15. Persuasion by Jane Austen. I am actually not the biggest Jane Austen fan, so when I read this book last year I was very surprised at how much I liked it. The lead character and her predicaments were so relatable.