“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Perfect timing for this topic!  Yesterday I was contacted by the author of Read, Remember, Recommend about developing a list of 50-100 of the best books for book club discussion.  Since this week is finals week and I’m a bit swamped, I will not start to seriously compile my list until next week — so this BTT topic is a great precursor!  I look forward to checking out which works have “stuck” in all our minds.

I composed this list in 15 minutes, as directed, so these are really the first titles that surfaced after very little reflection.  (Next week’s list will obviously be the product of a LOT of reflection, but I enjoyed witnessing which titles came to mind first).

In the order in which they appeared…

• Pride and Prejudice
• Romeo and Juliet
• The Road
• Beloved
• The Sound and the Fury
• A Moveable Feast
• My Friend Sasha (childhood book I loved about wolves)
• The Great Gatsby
• The Color Purple
• The Blind Assassin
• Mrs. Dalloway
• The Invisible Man
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• The Things They Carried
• Wuthering Heights

If I had to guess what unites the titles on this list, I would say that each title presented a new perspective on something — whether race, obsession, prose, the subconsious, love, narration, etc…  

What about YOU?  And remember, this is not a list of our favorite books — but of those titles that have affected us deeply and will always “stick with us”…  What’s the first title that comes to mind?