Books are My World
“Candace Michelle, shut off the light--NOW!!!” Light clicks off. Mom closes door. I count to ten. Flashlight clicks on. Before book lights or iPhone flashlights were a thing, I found solace reading under the covers until my eyes admitted defeat. This is how I deciphered the world, and my voracious appetite for reading ignited a lifelong passion for Story.
Books are my security blanket. Don’t try to remove them from my lap on a plane—you will be sorry! My friends tease me because I dream of taking a reading vacation. But I don’t have to go far, I'm content being carried away by a story in my own backyard. I believe you are what you read. In order to share a bit about myself with you, here’s an unsystematic sampling of some of my favorite books. Enjoy.
Novels:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngoize Adichie
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Euphoria by Lily King
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Nix by Nathan Hill
The History of Love by Nicola Krauss
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Little Children by Tom Perotta
Without a Map by Meredith Hall
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
On Earth We are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Sacre Blue: A Comedy d’Art by Christopher Moore
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Plays Well With Others by Alan Gurganus
The Power by Naomi Alderman
The Girls by Emma Cline
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Bear Town by Fredrik Backman
In Her Skin by Kim Savage
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka-Brunt
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Short Stories:
Tenth of September by George Saunders
The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore
Dear Life by Alice Monro
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
Memoir:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kennison
Lit by Mary Karr
Son of a Gun by Justin St. Germain
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas
Half a Life by Darin Straus
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Goldstein
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Metta Mom: A Mindful Guide to Managing Your Mood and Your Brood by Vanessa Linsey
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Lucky by Alice Sebold
The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Educated by Tara Westover
Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire by Barbara Lynch
Kick by Joanna Rush
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken
Yes, Please by Amy Pohler
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Moments of Seeing by Katrina Kennison (everything by her!)
Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani
Fairyland by Alicia Abbott
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
I am I am I am: Thirteen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell
With or Without You by Dominica Ruta
The Chronology of Water by Lydia Yuknavitch
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxanne Gay
Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Unspeakable by Meghan Daum
When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams
Group by Christie Tate
Finding Freedom: A Cook's Story; Remaking a Life from Scratch by Erin French
The Beauty in Breaking by Michelle Harper
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
Narrative Nonfiction:
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
She Has Her Mother’s Laugh by Carl Zimmer
The Recovering by Leslie Jamieson
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life by Steve Almond
She Said by Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
Probable Impossibilities by Alan Lightman
Personal Growth:
Playing Big by Tara Mohr
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman
Thanks Help Wow; Small Victories; Almost Everything; Hallelujah Anyway; by Anne Lamott
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Listening Below the Noise by Anne D. LeClaire
How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama
The Artist’s Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice by Julia Cameron
The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
I hope you find an idea or two for a new book to hunker down with in this sampling of my favorite reads. There's an even longer list for my TBRs…I may never catch up. Please share your favorite epic reads with me.