Habitual Reader Profiles - Page 1

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	Name: Lynda Fitzgerald
	City & State: Snellville, Georgia
	Vocation / Avocation: Author

Why I'm a Habitual Reader:

I can't remember ever not being a habitual reader, any more than I can imagine what life would be like if I weren't a reader.

Reading enriches readers' lives, allows to experience things that could never come our way in the ordinary course of life, gives us something to laugh at when life otherwise seems bleak.

When someone tells me that they "don't read," I don't feel superior to them (because I do read, constantly), but I feel sorry for them because they are going to miss so much that life, through literature, has to offer.

I can't imagine such a life. How wonderful that I don't have to!

My List of Ten: Top Ten Books I'm Glad I Didn't Miss

1. Hotel Paradise
Author: Martha Grimes
There are actually 3 books in this series about a twelve year-old girl pretty much raising herself and getting into every kind of trouble imaginable. The heroine is plucky, the supporting characters brilliantly sketched.

2. One For the Money
Author: Janet Evanovitch
Anytime I need a quick fix of laughter, I pick up one of Evanovitch's 12 Stephanie Plum novels. Stephanie Plum is outrageous. Always good for a laugh.

3. Hidden Riches
Author: Nora Roberts
If you haven't read this early Nora Roberts, it's worth the time. Hysterically funny, with a decent plot and great characters. I think it's the best thing she has ever written.

4. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Author: Harriet Jacobs
Harriet Jacobs was raised in slavery, so her words carry an honesty rarely seen in books about those times. Even though she's openly lobbying against a hideous system, her experiences bring to life what she must have experienced.

5. The Poisonwood Bible
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
An amazing book depicting the life experiences of a young woman being raised by missionaries in the Belgian Congo and her feelings as she sees her father descend into madness. It hurt in places, but it's a remarkable book. So are her Pigs in Heaven, Animal Dreams, and The Bean Trees, three books to charm your socks off.

6. Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
My #1 favorite. Jane Austen brought 18th century English countryside life . . . well, to life. I've read it perhaps a dozen times, and I find something new in it every time.

7. Last of the Breed
Author: Louis L'Amour
A big change from L'Amour's many westerns, Last of the Breed is about a modern-day Sioux American test pilot who crash lands in Siberia. He escapes from a Russian prison and leads a Russian tracker (of Siberian Indian descent) on a remarkable chase as their similar instincts and knowledge kick into gear. The ending will give you goosebumps.

8. Word of Honor
Author: Nelson DeMille
Again, an early book (1987), and quite possibly, his best. The story is about atrocities committed in Vietnam by troops commanded by Ben Tyson. Many years after the fact, the Army decides to try Tyson for the crimes. The truth is quite different from the accusations, and Tyson would rather face disgrace than have it come out. Awesome book.

9. Lady Elizabeth's Comet
Author: Sheila Simonson
Tagged as "merely" a Regency Romance, Lady Elizabeth's Comet is the closest I've found to the humor and romance of Jane Austen's novels. Lady Elizabeth is a quirky "spinster" (of 28) who would rather spend the season peering through her telescope than dancing the nights away in London. Then a new Earl takes over her family home, a man who may just have the intelligence to appreciate the same in her.

10. The Girl
Author: Catherine Cookson
Almost all of the novels by Catherine Cookson, and she was quite prolific, are wonderful.

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

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