Story time!
Believe it or not, there was a time when I didn’t talk. I couldn’t communicate the same way other people did. When I was a little girl, I was severely speech delayed. Beyond the normal age for full words and sentences, I still could only say “Mommy”, “Daddy” and “Dud-uh-ah”, (which meant everything else). My parents had a speech therapist come to our house every week, I went to speech therapy at school, and eventually, I recovered. As my mom likes to say, I haven’t shut up since.
She’s not wrong.
Since I wasn’t very vocal, I lost myself in the fictional world. My Mom used to call me “the Librarian”. I have very fond memories hiding up in my grandmother’s attic, pouring over my Mom’s collection of Nancy Drew books. In the span of one summer, I had read every single one.
I devoured books like my life depended on it. I made friends with fictional characters like Ramona Quimby, The Babysitters Club, Jo March, the Twits, Matilda, and all of Jan Brett’s woodland creatures. As I’ve gotten older, work, friends, and travel have unfortunately disrupted my love for reading. I’ve been busy writing my own stories.
That’s about to change. I’ve decided to start my very own reading list – feel free to follow along – of my favorite books, and books I’ve always wanted to read. Feel free to make recommendations – I don’t want to miss any gems.
The First Ever Melissa’s 100 Reading List
1. “My Story” – Elizabeth Smart (read it, loved it, cried about it)
2. “The Signature of All Things” – Elizabeth Gilbert
3. “The Sun Also Rises”- Ernest Hemingway
4. “Anna Karenina” – Leo Tolstoy
5. “The Old Man And The Sea” – Ernest Hemingway (favorite)
6. “The Time Travelers Wife” – Audrey Niffenegger (one of my favorites)
7. “A Midsummers Dream” – William Shakespeare
8. “Persepolis” – Marjane Satrapi
9. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” – Milan Kundera
10. “Leaves of Grass” – Walt Whitman
11. “The Bell Jar” – Sylvia Plath
12. “The Golden Notebook” – Doris Lessing
13. “Someday, Someday, Maybe” – Lauren Graham
14. “A Room of One’s Own” – Virginia Woolf
15. “She’s Come Undone” – Wally Lamb
16. “Birds of America” – Lorrie Moore
17. “The Fountainhead” – Ayn Rand
18. “Howl and Other Poems” – Allen Ginsberg
19. “Come To Me” – Amy Bloom
20. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” – Milan Kundera