Booking Thru Thursday

 This week's Booking Through Thursday question is:
If you had to pick only 5 books to read ever again, what would they be and why?’


(Such a cruel question!)

Really?  I have to choose five?  This is very hard.  But here goes...
First of all, I looked at some other answers and they chose more intellectual or classic books than I am going to.   Mine are pretty simple.   Its funny how different our choices are.


Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly.
I bought it at a book fair when I was in the 8th grade.  My first love story--written in 1942.   The description in it is beautiful.  It makes me want to be there in that kitchen, that house, falling in love with a teenage boy all over again.

A summer to remember...

Angie always thought high school romances were just silly infatuations that come and go. She certainly never thought she would fall in love over one short summer. But when she meets Jack, their connection is more than a crush. Suddenly, Angie and Jack were filling their summer with stolen moments and romantic nights. But as fall grows closer, they must figure out of their love is forever, or just a summer they'll never forget.





The Stand by Stephen King.
How can one not include Stephen King if one has to read it over and over again?   The ultimate story of good vs evil.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.



And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.




The Guernsey Literary  Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Because---I like books written in  epistal form and, it's just the sweetest book ever.

“ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….



As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.




The Mother Tongue by Bill  Bryson.
It's just one of the most interesting books I've ever read.

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of "The Lost Continent"--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries





and last but  not least
Every single  one of the Deborah Knott Mystery Series by Margaret Maron.
Of course, all 18 of them need to be in a collection--a very HUGE book--to be counted as one.

This first novel in Maron's Imperfect series, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 1993, introduces heroine Deborah Knott, an attorney and the daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger. Known for her knowledge of the region's past and popular with the locals, Deb is asked by 18-year-old Gayle Whitehead to investigate the unsolved murder of her mother Janie, who died when Gayle was an infant. While visiting the owner of the property where Janie's body was found, Deb learns of Janie's more-than-promiscuous past. Piecing together lost clues and buried secrets Deb is introduced to Janie's darker side, but it's not until another murder occurs that she uncovers the truth.



I think is my list---for now.  It's subject to change depending on my whims.


PS  my whim is thinking of switching  one of the above books for the Godfather by Mario Puzo.