Happy Book Lovers' Day!

I wonder...do you think I qualify as a book lover?

I do have a couple of books around.

I learned to read when I was 4, and have never stopped.  Bobbesy Twins in kindergarten and first grade, Nancy Drew in second grade.  These 3 bookshelves are probably about half of the books we have in this house (or maybe a little less; who's counting?).
 

I read an article in my Sunday paper about the author's favorite book, and realized that your favorite book must change as you get older.  I loved The Secret Garden when I found it, maybe in 3rd or 4th grade.  I reread it a few months back, and still loved it.  Then there was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  I found a copy of that one at the book sale the week before our house fire; I'm going to read it again soon.  Gone With The Wind?  Yep, 6th grade.  I've read it several times.  I realized while thinking about this post that all of these books have something in common: a girl/woman in difficult circumstances who does what she must to survive.  Poor Mary, cranky and unloved.  Francie, well loved, living in a tenement.  Scarlett and Melanie, the same and so different.  I'd have liked to think I'd have been Scarlett, but without modern medicine, I fear I'd have been Melanie.

Then, the summer before 8th grade, when we'd moved yet again, and I didn't know a soul, I took up walking the mile-and-a-half to the library every other day to get myself 2 or 3 books, and I found Taylor Caldwell.  Historical fiction set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which gave a great look at how people lived and thought not so long beforehand.  My favorite of all of her books was Captains and The Kings.

Of course, there have been a gazillion other books - too many to mention - but the ones which stay with me the best are the ones where the main character speaks to my heart, moves me.  Most recently, The Little Paris Bookshop and Delicious! come to mind.

So, what about you?  Favorite books, currently or in the past, or even a favorite book ever?

And, just in case you wondered, here is Mark's summer reading selection.  He also had to read Night by Elie Wiesel for history, along with the first quarter of the textbook (and a bucketload of questions to answer for that).  I'll probably read some of these, too.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!