Books With a Past

Finding time to read is a luxury for me and I love nothing more than to snuggle up with a good book on a cold winter day.  While books are personal, everyone has their own style, even in reading, a good book IS a good book.  Here are a few of my all time favorites, ones I read over and over again. And books make great gifts!

1) The Big Short by Michael Lewis

Lewis is one of my favorite contemporary writers and this book is coming soon in a movie with Brad Pitt.  I can't wait to see it.  This chronicles several real life people who bet against the financial meltdown in 2008 and won really big. Fascinating stories.  Somewhat technical in financial speak but if you like big finance you'll enjoy this one.  He also wrote Moneyball and Liar's Poker.

2) The Razors Edge by Somerset Maugham

Maugham is my favorite writer and I've read all of his novels. Ashenden and Of Human Bondage are also favorites.  He's very dark but how the man could write.  He was a famous playwright in his day, lesser known as a novelist.  Who knew? There are several old movie versions of this book out there.

3) Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Another one of my favorite writers. Stegner, who taught creative writing at Stanford for many years and who taught some now famous writers their craft, is possibly better known for his Angle of Repose which won him the Pulitzer.  He writes mostly about the West but this book is set in Wisconsin.

4) Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriela Garcia Marquez

Just a great classic novel that can be read over and over again.

5) A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

One of my newer additions to the list and by a contemporary author no less.  

I am getting ready to start Robert Penn Warren's classic All the King's Men.  I've never read any of his works.  Wish me luck!

Turn off your television, your video games, your iPhone and read!