Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 2

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	Name: Andi
	City & State: Dallas, Texas
	Vocation / Avocation: Graduate Student/English Instructor
	Website: http://estellasrevenge.blogspot.com

Why I'm a Habitual Reader:

Beyond the obvious necessity of reading as a graduate student, if I don't read for pleasure I feel as if I can't breathe. Each book is an opportunity to gain new insight, learn something, or "slip the surly bonds of earth" for a bit.

My List of Ten: Favorite Books (this week)

1. The Cider House Rules
Author: John Irving
One of my favorites ever, the characters in this book stayed with me long after the last page was flipped in a very real way. I think about Dr. Larch and Homer Wells often, and I think it might be time for a re-read.

2. The Lord of the Rings
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
One of the most engrossing tales I've ever read. No one makes me feel more a part of a fictional world than Tolkien.

3. The Hours
Author: Michael Cunningham
The three tales in this novel are so expertly woven together that it drags you headlong into the story.

4. What I Loved
Author: Siri Hustvedt
Siri Hustvedt reminds me very much of Joyce Carol Oates in the way that she's able to create an uncomfortable--but intriguing--mood. What I Loved was at once disturbing, powerful, insightful, and beautifully peppered with references to folk and fairy tales, psychology, art, literature, etc.

5. The New York Trilogy
Author: Paul Auster
Much like his wife, Siri Hustvedt, Auster creates a great sense of atmosphere, and his books are full of references to other works. This particular book is stunning. I won't try to describe it in any more detail than that.

6. The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
I've re-read Gatsby more than any other book I've ever picked up (5 times to date). I love everything about it: Fitzgerald's use of language, the symbols and metaphors, the self-centered characters, and his portrayal of the death of the American dream.

7. Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
Containing one of my favorite characters in all of literature--Estella--this book literally changed my life. When I first read it as a freshman in high school I fell in love with the idea of "classics" and started to turn over the idea of being an English teacher.

8. The Waste Land & Other Poems
Author: T.S. Eliot
Another one of those life changing reading experiences. I first read The Waste Land in an undergraduate British survey course. I was incredibly burned out (last semester of senior year), but this poem and my professor's passion for it gave me the courage to try graduate school.

9. The Vampire Diaries
Author: L.J. Smith
I read this paranormal romance series growing up, and they fueled my love of books and writing in a big way. I still pick them up and re-read every few years.

10. A Tale of Two Cities
Author: Charles Dickens
Another favorite from high school that made me love literature all the more. Never have I read a more twisted book, and that's one of the things I adore about it.

Have you read any of these titles? Review one now.

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