Compiled by Joyce Hansen, MLIS

Has the strict ban on leisure reading finally been lifted now that summer's here? Give your weary, weary brain a rest with these, bibliophiles. (If you must, a flashlight under the covers still works!) Thanks to Nancy Pearl's Book Lust 101 class, winter quarter, for this list of some of their all-time favorite books and writers, and use the comments section to add your own treasured must reads.

1. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
4. Year of Wonders:  A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
5. Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon
6. The Bebb series (Lion Country, Open Heart, Love Feast, and Treasure Hunt) by Frederick Buechner
7. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
8. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
9. The Man Who Was Thursday:  A Nightmare by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
10. True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
11. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
12. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
13. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
14. The Girl I Left Behind by Shusaku Endo
15. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
16. Independence Day by Richard Ford
17. The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
18. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
19. Naked in Baghdad by Ann Garrels
20. Do the Windows Open? by Julie Hecht
21. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
22. Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
23. Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
24. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
25. A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana by Haven Kimmel
26. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
27. Biggest Elvis by P.F. Kluge
28. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
29. The Girls by Lori Lansen
30. Absolutely, Positively Not by David LaRochelle (YA)
31. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
32. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
33. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
34. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
35. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
36. Beloved by Toni Morrison
37. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
38. Never in a Hurry:  Essays on People and Places by Naomi Shihab Nye
39. The Artificial Kingdom: On the Kitsch Experience by Celeste Olalquiaga
40. The Loved One by Catherine Palmer
41. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
42. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
43. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
44. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
45. Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman by Alice Steinbach
46. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
47. Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man: a Study in Terror and Healing by Michael T Taussig
48. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
49. Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
50. Night by Elie Wiesel
51. I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolff


Anything by Walter Mosley
Anything by Alice Munro
Anything by Ruth Reichl
Anything by Nora Roberts
Anything by John Steinbeck
Anything by Anne Tyler
Anything by Eudora Welty
Anything by P.G. Wodehouse

Almost a book a week for a year here, iSchoolers. Cracking open that first book during break--I'll be on cloud nine!

People say life is the thing, but I prefer reading. -- Logan Pearsall Smith