My 13 favorite books of all time
Discover my 13 favorite books of all time—a curated list of must-read classics and hidden gems that have shaped my love for literature. Find your next great read!

Book
Dreamfall
by Joan D. Vinge
The third book in the author's Cat series and the sequel to the national best-seller Catspaw follows the tough, half-human hero as he travels to Refuge, where strange life forms face an ecological disaster.

Book
Catspaw
by Joan D. Vinge
Cat, a telepathic half-human, half-alien orphan and future punk, is kidnapped, taken to Earth, and forced to protect those he hates most, the taMings, until he discovers that he is not a bodyguard, he is the bait.
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Book
The Golden Compass
by Philip Pullman
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

Book
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci
by Diana Wynne Jones
In this multiple parallel universes of the Twelve Related Worlds, only an enchanter with nine lives is powerful enough to control the rampant misuse of magic -- and to hold the title Chrestomanci... There is a world in which the peaceful city-state of Caprona is threatened by the malevolent machinations of a mysterious enchanter...and another in which magic is outlawed and witches are still burned at the stake. In two worlds the practice of magic has gone dangerously awry, there is only one solution -- call upon the Chrestomanci.

Book
The Subtle Knife
by Philip Pullman
As the boundaries between worlds begin to dissolve, Lyra and her daemon help Will Parry in his search for his father and for a powerful, magical knife.

Book
The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.


Book
The Hermit Thrush Sings
by Susan Butler
After a natural disaster has all but destroyed the Earth, the orphaned and "defective" Leora, while searching for her sister, defies the oppressive laws of the land and joins a band of rebels trying to overthrow the government. An intriguing fantasy that has as much to say about being different as it does about the joy of belonging, this selection of the Junior Library Guild pulls readers into this beautifully imagined world and Leora's quest to find her place in it.

Book
Iron and Silk
by Mark Salzman
Salzman captures post-cultural revolution China through his adventures as a young American English teacher in China and his shifu-tudi (master-student) relationship with China's foremost martial arts teacher.

Book
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci
by Diana Wynne Jones
In this multiple parallel universes of the Twelve Related Worlds, only an enchanter with nine lives is powerful enough to control the rampant misuse of magic--and to hold the title Chrestomanci... The Chants are a family strong in magic, but neither Christopher Chant nor Cat Chant can work even the simplest of spells. Who could have dreamed that both Christopher and Cat were born with nine lives--or that they could lose them so quickly?

Book
Holes
by Louis Sachar
This groundbreaking classic is now available in a special anniversary edition with bonus content. Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award, HOLES is a New York Times bestseller and one of the strongest-selling middle-grade books to ever hit shelves! Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment —and redemption. Special anniversary edition bonus content includes: A New Note From the Author!; "Ten Things You May Not Know About HOLES" by Louis Sachar; and more! .