My Reading
Between book posts at my blog and my coversations about them in various places across the web, I talk a lot about books. This list is by no means all-inclusive, as I’m sure many great books and authors have eluded me for the moment. This page will change as I remember books and authors I forgot, and as I discover new talent.
Authors I Like
First, I want to make a clarification. There is a huge difference between liking an author’s books and liking the author. Some authors are jerks. And there are some super-nice authors whose books I don’t like. This list contains authors who are nice people (as far as I can tell) and whose books I liked, though I may or may not have loved.
- Justin Allen Slaves of the Shinar, Year of the Horse)
- Kristen Britain (The Green Rider series)
- Glen Cook (The Black Company books, the Garrett Files)
- Leanna Renee Hieber (The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker)
- Lisa Shearin (The Raine Benares books)
- Jim C. Hines (Jig the Goblin series, Princess series)
- Tamara Siler Jones (The Dubric Byerly books)
- George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire series)
- Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind)
- Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn series, Alcatraz series, forthcoming Wheel of Time books)
Books I Love
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
First Rider’s Call by Kristen Britain
Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Outlander and Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
The Forest by Edward Rutheford
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Classics I Love
I thought these deserved their own category.
Jane Austen
- Pride and Prejudice
- Sense and Sensibility
Edgar Allan Poe
- “The Masque of the Red Death”
- “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
- “The Purloined Letter”
Mark Twain
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
My Favorite Book Ever
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
I believe in the power of the written word. Sounds a bit melodramatic, I know. But when I was in junior high, I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond seventeen times. Something about it caught hold of me. I related so well to it, and at that transitional time in my life, I sometimes really felt like this book was my only friend. No book before or since has captured me so much, and in fact, this is part of the reason I write. If something I write can affect even one person the way Speare’s book did me, it’s been worth the effort. Writing a book is hard. Readying it for publication is harder still. But I’m thankful for the labor that went into The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Even now, years later, it is my favorite book in the world.
