Bookish

I must make a confession: I hate reading "classic" literature. I find most classics incredibly boring and tedious (apologies to the MiL, who is an English professor at a very good university and reads this stuff for fun--I'm a great disappointment as a daughter-in-law). The real irony here is that I was an English major. A. calls me the worst-read English major in the world, and it is possible he's right. I took this one class in college that required us to read a novel a week. I didn't finish a single one, and yet I still managed to get an A in the class. I think that speaks more to the low standards at that school and my ability to bullshit than to my great intelligence.

But despite my unwillingness to read Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to the bitter end, I do still read every single day. And what do I read? Mostly the same things over and over again, because I'm boring. Some people can't stand to read books more than once, but I find it comforting. I know what's going to happen, I can skip over the stuff I don't want to read and not lose the plot, and I can put my brain on auto-pilot. Sort of like watching t.v., except without the horrifying possibility of encountering graphic images of a crime scene or Flavor Flav.

Here are some of my go-to favorite books, many from my childhood:

1) All of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I have already alluded to my fondness for these books, but perhaps you didn't realize that I re-read all of them probably once a year. I know that makes me sound juvenile and lame. What's your point?

2) The President's Daughter trilogy by Ellen Emerson White. These are fantastic books for teenagers. They were written in the 80s and are about the daughter of the first female president. They're very well-written and funny, despite being dramas, more or less. Plus, I've always been fascinated with the White House, and it's just cool to read about a woman being president. Especially considering the book was written pre-Hillary Clinton, when the possibility of a female president was still a far-off dream.

3) Anything by Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters (except the Amelia Peabody series). Same woman, two different pen names for the two genres she writes. She's very funny, very witty, and very educated. She writes these hilarious tongue-in-cheek modern Gothic thrillers. She's probably my favorite author ever. And at least she doesn't write children's books, so I can pretend that I'm a grown-up.

4) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Awesome. And hey! This one is a real, actual classic! So I'm not a complete English-major reject! But once again, it is a book for children. Are we sensing a theme here? I apparently suffer from literary arrested development.

5) Alas, Babylon. This book was written at the height of the Cold War. It's a novel about the possible scenario had the U.S. been hit with multiple nuclear bombs. It's a great book about survival. But not as abjectly depressing as many "when the end comes--dum dum DUUUUUM" books, which is important because I'm mostly into escapism, not reality.

There are others of course, but I won't bore you further. Plus, I want to know what your top picks might be. What do you read over and over again?