Carole Cohen started a book meme on ActiveRain.  

Carole tagged Bonnie who wrote BookTagged  Bonnie tagged me.  My Top Five books of all time?

                                                    I like books where I like the characters, or don't like the characters...but I really feel like the author has introduced me to the characters, not just a name and a physical description.  Most of the books I like the characters are a bit quirky but the author develops the characters and their interaction.  Like movies for me there does not have to be murder, violence, sex, or action to hold my interest.  I like subtle interaction between characters rather than high drama, in most cases.  Most of the books I really like are about families.  Most of the books are about forgiveness, forgiving, not forgiving... Most are about faith and fate, many of the books I've liked have been historical.   

OCR: Obsessive Compulsive Reading? I have always been in a rut when it came to reading. If I found an author I like I read all of the authors books.  This meme made me look to see who wrote the 'All-of-a Kind Family' books that I loved as a child.  It was a series of stories of five Jewish sisters and their family in NYC in the beginning of the 20th century. I easily find the books without knowing authors or titles with the miracle of Google. I find they were written by Sydney Taylor.  As I got older I read all of Maud Hart Lovelace's, Laura Ingalls Wilder's and Louisa May Alcott's books.    

I worked in public libraries in high school and college.  I come from a family who are bookworms (OCR.)  I've been healed (of OCR) I don't read a lot of new books anymore, but I do sometimes reread books I liked. 

I do read other books if people hand them to me and say "read this!"  That has been the majortiy of my reading the past five years or so.  I do read short stories more now than novels or non fiction books.  I like "stories."

My 5 All Time Favorites or most read books: 

'The Bible' -   I never really read The Bible... really sat down and read it until 1995 (although I had it read to me bit by bit  for years... previously.)   I still can't claim to have read it cover to cover.  I've tried. I do read this book more than a lot of more recently written books lately.  Reading this book has probably cut into the time I used to use to read novels.

'A Prayer for Owen Meany' - I have read most but not all of John Irving's books (recent ones have not been read) First time through I could not put down 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' and I have reread it.  It is about two boys growing up and their freaky families.  A lot of 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' is set in Sunday school and church.  I think the book is about faith, fate and social justice.  

I've also read Irving's 'The 158-Pound Marriage', 'The Cider House Rules', 'The Hotel New Hampshire', 'Setting Free the Bears', 'The Water-Method Man' and 'The World According to Garp'.  I think Hotel New Hampshire was the one I could not read the first time I tried it. I tried again later after a time and liked it.

'Saint Maybe'  I have read most of Anne Tyler's books, the last couple published I have not read.  First time through I could not put down 'Saint Maybe.' It is a story about faith and fate and responsibility.  It is a story about a young man who takes on responsibility for his brother's family and step family.  He becomes a member of the 'CHURCH OF THE SECOND CHANCE.'

Look at a  list of books written by Anne Tyler, subtract all but the last three and I have read them all (OCR.)

'Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age"  by Kevin Boyle.  This is the only thing I have read by Boyle.   This book won the National Book Award for non fiction.  It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and other awards.  This is the story of  a black physician's family who buys property in a "white neighborhood" in Detroit. Earlier in his life the main character lived in rural Florida, then went to school at a school  just west of Columbus Ohio and then to Howard University in Washington DC for medical school.  He and his wife travelled in Europe also.  I found the descriptions of how integrated or segregated life was at the time (Jazz Age) in various communities in the US and Europe fascinating. It was such an important time in Detroit with the auto industry flourishing it was interesting to read about that community and how it compared to the south and other communities.  There was a historic trial in this true story that has become  virtually forgotten. Detroit had forgot it?  Outside of Detroit it was well known at the time but long forgotten less than a  century later.  Clarence Darrow who was involved in the Scopes Monkey Trial a year or two earlier was a main character in the court room but this trial was forgotten by America.  

Boyle is a history professor at OSU. This is a book I was handed and told "Read This!"

"To Kill a Mockingbird"  I first read it in high school and have reread it and watched the movie so much I know the lines.  We studied it in 10th grade English and it has been a favorite since.

Books I have been reading for years and may never finish:

'The Fountainhead' by Ayan Rand I just don't get it. 

'War and Peace' by Tolstoy  I love Russian history but I can't keep the characters straight.

'Lady Chatterly's Lover' by D. H. Lawrence

"HTML 4 For Dummies"  I've only been reading this one for about 16 months unlike the others... I got a lot out of PC's for Dummies... I read that cover to cover.

I tag Teri Lussier, Mary Pope-Handy,  Tracy Santrock, Missy Caulk, Tina Kreminsky (a Columbus Blogger she writes Green Buckeye and another more personal blog... Oomsomethingorother),  Toby Boyce, David Childress and Ann Cummings.

The meme instructions from Carole:

" Please pick your Top Five books of all time, and tell us why you like them so much. Are there books you find yourself revisiting? At some point in your life did you find a book so enthralling  you had to read it from start to finish without putting it down -- even if that put your entire life on hold for a day? You can use any criteria for favorite books and the only thing I ask is that you describe why you like the book so much.  Personally I think it's only a slightly difficult exercise because narrowing it down to five might be tough. Of course you can take some creative license and make the list longer :-) 

***When you post, please come back here (Maureen's blog... entry "  A Reading Rut -  my top five books of all time" at least one of my memee's have posted their's on Carole's but not mine  boo hoo) and link to your blog. You can post this on any blog 'home' you choose, but please come back  and link to it here so we can all find it more easily and also see what books we should add to our reading lists!

Please tag or meme a few people after you are done so we can learn about them too."

Or don't tag others....

Put a link to this entry please!  

Or don't....

Thanks!