Favorite 10 Books of All Time

The Mummy Case (Elizabeth Peters)

Really, anything every written by EP--her books, which feature all sorts of topics, were a gateway to my learning all sorts of things on all sorts of obscure topics. This book, however, is special. If I'd never picked up "The Mummy Case," I'd never have caught the Egyptology bug and everything would have turned out very differently for for me. Very, very different.

Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)

Really, the whole series. Who doesn't love Anne Shirley?

Trojan Gold (Elizabeth Peters)

I brought this book to a high school basketball camp one summer at Eastern Illinois University. A lot of my teammates were the popular kids and I wasn't and a couple of them weren't very nice to me. This book was my escape at the end of each day.

The Last Camel Died at Noon (Elizabeth Peters)

My favorite book from my all-time favorite series.

The Lord of the Rings series (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Duh.

Harry Potter series (J.K. Rowling)

Sacrificial love defeats ultimate evil--an all time favorite series for sure.

A String in the Harp (Nancy Bond)

I read this book as a kid and never forgot it. Time-travel is a theme I find endlessly fascinating. (Really, the history geek likes time travel stories? Shocker, I know.) This was the first time-travel story I read.

Ramona the Brave (Beverly Cleary)

As an elementary school kid, I could definitely relate to this book.

Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing (Judy Blume)

Ditto.

The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins)

A wonderful adventure novel and the book that introduced me to Victorian literature.