Wednesday 5: Ideal Bookshelf

A recent find:

Ideal Bookshelf

Artist Jane Mount paints your ideal bookshelf: the spines of books you love, or books that identify you, or... however you choose them, the books that would be on Your Ideal Bookshelf.

As soon as I read about it... I was pretty sure I knew mine:

1. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. This cover, in particular.

2. Speaker for The Dead- Orson Scott Card. Was pretty much the reason I majored in anthropology.

3. Beauty- Robin McKinley. My favorite retelling of my favorite fairy tale. And an ode to bookish girls everywhere.

4. Poetry's tougher- so many that I love have these skinny spines, hard to paint, I imagine. So... either Omeros, by Derek Walcott, or The Dream Songs, by John Berryman. Both ideal because I love the language, and because of the people who gave them to me.

5. A cookbook.  Jane Brody's Good Food Book. It may not be sexy, but these are my go-to recipes, many I grew up with.

Of course, having made this list... there would be a few others I feel weird having left out. So... use them as bookends?

All Creatures Great and Small- James Herriot. I love these books. If audiobooks count as reading, I've read this almost as many times as I've read The Westing Game, by now.

Gentlemen of the Road- Michael Chabon. The first book I reviewed for the Ledger. Without which, this blog wouldn't be here!