Jan 29, 2015 / Inspiration

Our Favorite Books and Why We Love Them

Today, it’s all about books we love. We’re sharing ours. Will you share yours?

At Automattic, we have a plethora of book lovers. We love to read and we love to share. And today, we’re going to share books we’ve loved with you, in the hopes that you’ll return the favor and share your favorite books with us in the comments.

lorilooLori McLeese

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Joan Didion allows us into her year after her husband, Gregory Dunne, died. I read this book once or twice a year, and it always brings tears, though I know the outcome. It’s not a romanticized love story, it’s a real love story, and it’s about those incredible, raw, numbing, forgetful moments you find yourself emerged in as grief washes over you.

My favorite passage:

Was it about faith or was it about grief?

Were faith and grief the same thing?

Were we unusually dependent on one another the summer we swam and watched Tenko and went to dinner at Morton’s?

Or were we unusually lucky?

I can only hope to be as unusually lucky as they were.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I don’t remember when I first read this book; the story has always been a close companion. It’s a story of family, and all families are crazy, right? It’s a story of telling the story as you want it told, which is what we all do at some point or another. The loves are complicated and the deaths are fantastical.

My favorite passage:

It was then that she realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia.

I can’t imagine anything dreamier than being preceded by butterflies. Heaven.

* * *

zandyZandy Ring

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I didn’t find out about this book until grad school, when a professor tried to describe what magical realism was. Intrigued, I dove in and was captivated from the start. The distinct but overlapping members of the sprawling Buendia family from the Colonel, his wife Ursula, to the seventeen Aurelianos make this other, charm-infused, world real.

Favorite line:

The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.

(And that’s just the first page!)

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
I read this book first when I was maybe 21 or 22. I hadn’t read much at that point that began in media res, and riddling through the story alongside Vonnegut’s own voice was such a bizarre experience, I was smitten. I loved it so much that I ended up writing my thesis on it, later on. The slowly building apprehension over what it is that has unstuck Billy Pilgrim from time; waiting for the other shoe to drop, the inevitable “tock” that follows every “tick” of the clock, all in Vonnegut’s devastatingly casual voice, is what keeps me coming back to this book time and again.

Favorite line:

Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

* * *

andreabadgleyAndrea Badgley

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
My Uncle Syd, who sends me random books at random times, gave me this book in 1999, and I’ve read it almost every winter since. Set in Newfoundland — wild, isolated, and raw — The Shipping News sates my deep craving for characters of the cold every time December rolls around. Proulx is a master sentence-crafter, and with each reading, I fall deeper in love with her verbs, her humor, her Newfoundland sea, and Wavey Prowse: the Tall and Quiet woman.

Favorite quote:

The idea of the north was taking him. He needed something to brace against.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
I don’t know why I do it to myself, reading this book over and over again, willing it to end differently each time, and sobbing all over again when it doesn’t, but I cannot resist Lonesome Dove. I’m a sucker for frontier literature, and Lonesome Dove not only delivers on the harsh earthiness of the pioneer life, but McMurtry makes me want to spend every waking moment of my life on the plains with his characters. I scan the Texas horizon, I sleep by the campfire, I eat Gus’ biscuits, I giggle at the dialogue. I cry, hard and deep, and I ache with the poignancy of this book.

Favorite quote:

‘My main skills are talking and cooking biscuits,’ Augustus said. ‘And getting drunk on the porch.’

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
I am a Hemingway fan. It is difficult for me to choose between his works to pick a favorite, and this slot was a close three-way tie between The Sun Also Rises, The Garden of Eden, and A Movable Feast. I ultimately selected this one because it incorporates everything I love about Hemingway: lean sentences, masculinity, precise word choice, empty space that must be filled by the reader, and (and this is the real reason) my favorite scene in all of literature — when the characters go fishing, and they chill their wine in an Alpine stream. Something about that scene gets me, and I can’t get enough of it.

Favorite quote:

I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.

* * *

adamhecklerAdam Heckler

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Humans tell themselves many stories about their place in the world. For example, we think we are unique and somehow apart from all other species, and that we are exempt from the laws of nature. But we enact this story to our peril. If we view the Earth and nature as enemies, something to wage war with and to be conquered, “one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.”

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
A truly remarkable collection of essays by one of the best writers to ever live. Have you ever wanted to read a 62-page review of an academic grammar usage guide? Wallace will make you not want to stop reading it. It’s essays like these, when Wallace is at his very best, using his rich literary talent and winking sense of humor to bring to light the absurd realities of life that we’ve never noticed before.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
This is one of the saddest books I have ever read. Using all sorts of first-hand accounts and written records, we can see how time and time again American Indians had their land, their dignity, and ultimately their lives taken from them by ever-expanding white settlers. Most of history, as we know, is written by the victors, so books like this are precious few. This should be required reading for every U.S. citizen.

* * *

eurelloElizabeth Urello

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
I’d like to list all of Robinson’s first three novels, but that would be tiresome, so here is the first one (although Gilead is better). I firmly believe that Marilynne Robinson is our greatest living writer (possibly tied with Alice Munro). Her writing is beautiful, original, and graceful. Just read the first chapter of Housekeeping: I ask you, would you ever in a million years have thought to describe a lake the way Robinson does? And yet if anyone has ever described a lake more perfectly, I don’t know about it.

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
I find that most of the time when a novel is described as “a cult classic beloved by writers,” it turns out to be impressive, but a total snore. Not so The Last Samurai! This is a clever and unusual book about a boy’s search for his father, his deeply antisocial mother, and learning many languages. It’s also great fun from the first page to the last, and although it prefers ideas to people, it still manages to be heartwarming in its way!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
This novel was so important in my formative years, and although as a wiser, older feminist, I am now absolutely horrified by just about everyone in the book (and equally horrified by how blissfully unaware of their horribleness I was at 13), I will always have a soft spot for sober, plain Jane and her stubborn adherence to her own (often poor) decisions.

* * *

wensco Wendy Scott

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
This was my first favorite story and I credit author Margery Williams with unlocking my imagination (and also with the vast collection of stuffed animals I amassed as a kid, any one of which might have been rendered real). My first grade teacher read it aloud to the class when I was about five years old and I remembered being captivated by the central question: What does it mean to be Real?

The Skin Horse, the sage of the nursery toys, explains it this way to the Velveteen Rabbit:

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

That Skin Horse. So wise.

(PS – My teacher gave me a copy of this book as a gift and I still have it on my shelf).

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
I’m a sucker for strong, vibrant characters set in turbulent or historically significant or interesting times, and Scarlett O’Hara certainly fits that description. She’s a character that you can despise, pity, and root for, all at once. Aside from that, at its heart, GWTW is a story of survival and an examination of what separates survivors from those who are crushed by catastrophe. The author, Margaret Mitchell, calls this quality gumption, in itself a charmingly Southern-flavored word.

This quote sums up the evolution of the former southern belle:

Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet & dancing slippers had slipped away & there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies & turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood.

Or, as Rhett Butler would say,

Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless.

Oh Scarlett!

On Writing by Stephen King and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
OK, so I’m cheating a bit here by listing a combo for my third pick, but it’s impossible to choose between these two. Stephen King’s On Writing and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird are must-reads for any aspiring writer or anyone looking for insight on the creative process as told by two fabulously irreverent and entertaining people.

Possibly the most well-known quote from King is this one from On Writing:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

But this one speaks to my soul more:

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

Lamott captures the essence of why I continue to pursue story writing:

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve thought that there was something noble and mysterious about writing, about the people who could do it well, who could create a world as if they were little gods or sorcerers.

* * *

stevensKrista Stevens

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
This is a beautiful book set in war-torn Chechnya. It explores families made but not chosen: from failed doctor Akhmed and his orphan charge Havaa, to Sonja and Natasha, two sisters — one brilliant, one beautiful — who struggle to express love for one another, to six formerly domestic, now feral dogs whose pack leader, Khassan, is a taciturn former university professor and father of the local informer.

This is a community of people “whittled by the deprivations” of war, corroded by betrayal, guilt, guilt by association, and shame, yet somehow humanity survives. This book had me sobbing for grief and joy. I have many favorite passages in this book. Here’s one of them:

She flipped through the book and found answers to questions no sane person would ever ask. The definition of a foot. The average length of a femur. Nothing for insanity by grief, or insanity by loneliness, or insanity by reading reference books.

Only one entry supplied an adequate definition, and she circled it with red ink, and referred to it nightly. Life: a constellation of vital phenomena—organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.

A Tale For The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, A Tale For The Time Being rocketed to the top of my all-time favorite books list after two consecutive reads. It’s rich and deep, yet accessible. East / West, past/present, the relationship between the writer and reader, quantum theory, reflection, memory, regret, shame, cruelty, brutality, and pacifism are just some of the ground Ruth Ozeki covers in this stellar novel that left me thinking differently about how I perceive the world. The twin protagonists, Naoko (Nao) Yasutani and Ruth, a blocked writer, are in the language of quantum theory, entangled particles — two things that share the same characteristics. Bravery, heroism, and the examined life take on new meaning viewed through the lens of this book.

Two favorite passages:

A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.

Finally I achieved my goal and resolved my childhood obsession with now because that’s what a drum does. When you beat a drum, you create NOW, when silence becomes a sound so enormous and alive it feels like you’re breathing in the clouds and the sky, and your heart is the rain and the thunder. Jiko says that this is an example of the time being. Sound and no-sound. Thunder and silence.

Over to you: tell us all about your favorite books — which would you recommend?

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  1. Anything by Madelaine L’Engle and Rumer Godden, for starters–they come to mind as few people seem to read them anymore. If you have never even heard of the second author, you are not alone–her books are difficult to find. She wrote novels that were based on her years of growing up in India. Unusual but flowing style, enchanting characters and curious events–complex yet often full of goodness. In This House of Brede was fascinating, about love, nuns in the Himalyas, and people whose lives interesect with theirs–and how fallible, faithful, intense and fun-loving the nuns are. An old-fashioned story teller. L’Engle, of course, as well. Try The Severed Wasp.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Hilarious. I read your recommendation and asked my cycling enthusiastic hubby if he’d read it. He reached between us and held up the book that’s currently sitting with him on the lounge. Domestique. He’s only just started … so no thoughts yet.

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    1. There’s so much better BDSM literature out there… That book is unresearched Jackie Collins with a seriously inaccurate portrayal of BDSM and the psychology behind it… Try “Beauty & Submission” by Maria Isabel Pita or the classic “The Story of O” by Pauline Reage.

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  5. – Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1599-1601)
    – King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1605)
    – The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925)
    – To the Lighthouse (Virginia Woolf, 1927)
    – The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, 1929)

    Liked by 4 people

  6. The World According to Garp (John Irving,), The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay), Zeitoun (Dave Eggers). Characters (if non-fiction subjects are characters?) and storytelling that reeled me in and had me talking about them long after I’d finished each.

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  8. What a great list!! It’s so hard to choose a succinct list from SO many books that I’ve read throughout my life, and while this particular book may seem like a book written only for children, my book to share is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It’s full of lessons & reminders that I’ve carried with me into my adult years. A favorite line is, “…so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.” So true!!!

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  9. I’m going to have to go with several:
    Watership Down

    Out of the Silent Planet- Lewis

    Blood River- Tim Butcher (because I used to live in the same region of Africa and this book fascinated me)

    Poisonwood Bible- for the same reason

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  10. Love this list. Encourages me to read some of them too.
    I know these are classics but they’re classics for a reason. So the books that have left the biggest impression on me are:
    – Endless Night by Agatha Christie – I found it unsettling. ‘Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.’
    – Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – such a haunting novel. ‘If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.’
    -The Turn of the Screw by Henry James – beautifully written and yet so, so scary.
    – Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – loved it but I won’t read it again because it makes me cry too much. You only have to say ‘Lennie’ to me and I start welling up. Great to be moved so much by a story though.
    – reading someone’s comments about Russian stories reminded me of this one which I highly recommend Le Testament Français by Andrei Makine – a moving, semi autobiographical novel. I was lucky enough to be given it as a gift otherwise I might have missed it.
    Better stop listing now…

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  11. This list is an absolute feast! Thanks. “The Velveteen Rabbit’ and that particular quote is a perennial favorite of mine. I want to add “An Equal Music”by Vikram Seth.This is about a quartet of musicians whose pianist is losing her hearing. I had never heard a string quartet and now I have a huge appreciation about their interactions that make their music unique. My favorite author is Ann Patchett. Beginning with her first book” Bel Canto”. Her characters are recognizably warm humans a reader can connect with who live in a bizarre world. Her newest book “State of Wonder” follows in this pattern.

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    1. I’d never read The Velveteen Rabbit. I burst into tears reading the quote from that book when I prepared this article. Definitely going to read that book. With luck, one day, I’ll be shabby, and Real. 🙂

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      1. “Shabby and real” is a place I’ve reached, though I’m more wobbly than shabby. I find it wonderfully freeing to let go of what others might see as a loss of dignity. Blessings on you journey.

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    2. Oh yes, big fan of Ann Patchett. Her book about the writing life is a gem too — The Getaway Car. I think of it often, especially when I’m desperate to write down an idea. She doesn’t write a thing down until the whole plot comes together. That’s months. Heck. Kinda freeing …

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  12. My favorite of all times is One Child by Torey Hayden. I read it all times to remind me how much showing love and being patient with those the world has given up on can make a difference

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  13. Isabelle Allende’s first book, House of the Spirits.
    favourite line: the first one. it got me in from the first reading:
    “Barbaras came from the sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy”.

    And there’s Cloud of Sparrows, by Takashi Matsuoka – i read it years ago, but it still ripples through the timelines to tantalise with its imagery, plot lines, and strong female characters…

    “Crossing an unknown river far from your domain, observe the surface turbulence, and note the clarity of the water. Head the demeanour of the horses. Beware of massed ambush. At a familiar ford near home, look deep into the shadows on the far bank, and watch the movements of the tall grass.Listen to the breathing of your nearest companions. Beware the loan assassin.”
    Also the opening sentences.

    And of course, the Yi Jing, also transliterated as the I Ching. Not a novel, but an essential companion in life. Bought my first copy at age 17 and still have the same dog-earred copy, that travels with me wherever I go.

    that’s my three.

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    1. Allende is on my list, thanks to Ms. Lori (top of the post). I thought for sure she’d list an Allende title in her part of the piece — she’s a huge fan.

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  15. What an interesting post with such great suggestions and so many of my favorites, especially Jane Eyre. It is so heartening to see so many loved books have been enjoyed by others. I endorse the reading of Rumor Goden – a wonderful author her writing is lovely. I will have to spend some time checking out some of the new (to me) suggestions. Some of my favorites include The House of The Spirits, which I think was my first magical realism book and captured me completely. Shipping News for such interesting characters and unique writing style. Last years unexpected favorite was The Goldfinch which I read because of all the press surrounding the book and the painting and was completely taken by it. The writing was so well crafted and I couldn’t put it down. However, the book that I would have to say is my deepest favorite is Life of PI which is the only book I re-started as soon as I finished it. I was so captivated by the whole story and the characters and writing that I just couldn’t deal with it ending.

    Liked by 3 people

  17. One of my favorite books is the Spineless Wonders: Strange Tales from the Invertebrate World
    by Richard Conniff. I’m always interested in the nature world and I love reading about these strange creatures that most of us would ignore.

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  19. No Dickens on the list, so I would have to add Great Expectations. It’s an amazingly atmospheric dark comedy about unrequited love. Arthur Golden’s The Memoirs of a Geisha is a must read too, a fascinating glimpse into a unique way of life. And anything by JG Ballard but especially Crash

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  20. Well I guess somebody has to do this. Might as well be me. Louis L’amour. That’s right he of the Western. The best grammarian ever. Not highbrow I realize, but still Louis I a treasure and a joy.

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  22. One of my favorite books is actually a collection of essays, words of wisdom, and nature writing… “The Earth Speaks” by Steve Van Matre features the writings of John Muir, Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson, the list goes on…

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  24. If after reading your blog does NOT want to pick up one of your suggestions; well, I don’t know what to say?
    I am going to write down your suggestions because to be excited about reading is important. Thank you for the reminder!

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  25. So hard to pick just a few “favorites” from a lifetime of reading: Do I go with something old or something new? Something that has had a major life impact, that I’ve returned to again and again, that I’ve given or recommended many times, or that I’ve written myself? Impossible to compile a single list. Off the top of my head, then: The Women’s Room by Marilyn French, as a book that made a huge difference to me when I was younger; Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, as a wonderful contemporary novel; and my own novel, Eagle Scouting, filled as it is will blood, sweat, and tears – and a book that will hopefully find a readership and a place on other people’s lists in the future because it has changed them with its insights about terrorism and family relationships.

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  26. So hard to pick just a few “favorites” from a lifetime of reading: Do I go with something old or something new? Something that has had a major life impact, that I’ve returned to again and again, that I’ve given or recommended many times, or that I’ve written myself? Impossible to compile a single list. Off the top of my head, then: The Women’s Room by Marilyn French, as a book that made a huge difference to me when I was younger; Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, as a wonderful contemporary novel; and my own novel, Eagle Scouting, filled as it is with blood, sweat, and tears – and a book that will hopefully find a readership and a place on other people’s lists in the future because it has changed them with its insights about terrorism and family relationships.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. One of my all-time fave books is The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. It’s an engaging read about his adventures across Latin America. It also depicts how his social consciousness was molded during that journey.

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  28. I love The Little Prince which is a fiction depicted the journey of a little prince from his planet to the human’s world. it’s actually a book for children but I believe that people at all ages will find it interesting and meaningful about love, friendship and honesty. Besides, it’s easy to read and comprehend for those who learn language, like in my case, I’m from Vietnam and I now keep three books of The Little Prince in Vietnamese, English and French. I promise you’ll be loving it, sometimes we all forget that we were once small children with pure and innocent views about world and the grown-ups

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  29. I recently read Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. This is the first novel by this Australian writer who fell in love with Iceland as an exchange student. You can feel the cold, the stark landscape, the isolation of the characters through this historical fiction story about the last person to be executed by beheading. Agnes is accused of murdering her lover/master and is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. The narrative tells the story from the outside – how people react to Agnes, and from the inside – we get into Agnes’ head where she not only reveals the details of the murder, but also the psychological drama of awaiting her death. I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. I can’t quote a favorite line because I returned the book to the library.

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