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.