[OrangeBlossomBaby]

I don't have a singular favorite book. I've been into historic fiction (NON-romance) for several years now. Went through dozens of books about the Henry VIII, the Plantagenets, the Victorian Age, mostly by Phillipa Gregory but several other authors as well. The past two years I've been absorbing novels about WWII and the Holocaust. Of particular interest are stories of life in the concentration camps and the "rabbits" of Ravensbrück.

I average around 20 books per year now, but at one point in my life I was reading at least 1 book every week.

Most of my "favorites" aren't books, they're authors. I'll usually read anything they write, if I haven't already read everything they've written.

I'm also a huge fan of Robert E. Heinlein. I've read every single novel he wrote while he was still alive, several of his short stories, and the "Grumbles from Beyond the Grave," a posthumous autobiography gathered by his wife Virginia after he died, using a collection of his correspondences with his publishers/editors and others.

Douglas Adams - read most of his books and played the HHGTG game he co-created with Infocom.

Shakespeare - a fan of the comedies and tragedies, not so much with the histories.

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales - in small doses, and nothing recent. I just remember getting a kick out of trying to understand it.

Dan Brown's books - He has an interesting spin on religion and his books are pretty quick reads.

Harry Potter - read the whole series, it took me maybe two days per book to read it.

Anne Rice - she went through a whole lot of different experiences and each series she wrote reflected some of her ideas and perceptions of religion, death, and to some extent, existence in general. I loved A Cry to Heaven, especially.

Dystopia novels: Jennifer Government by Max Barry, 1984, Brave New World, Walden II, Hunger Games, Handmaid's Tale, Divergent, anything by Octavia Butler, Ready Player One/Two.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Anathema by Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon was fascinating but I struggled with the way it leapt from storyline to storyline, because they took place during different times of history. Insanely long book - 1172 pages.

Neil Gaiman is awesome. Terry Pratchett is amazing. Michael Moorcock's Elric saga kept me entertained on and off for a couple of years.

I have a "selected entries" of Lewis Carroll that I refer to sometimes just because I'm in the mood for his wit and rhythmic poetry.

Lastly, this stand-alone: A book called Herland, a feminist utopian novel written in 1915 by Charlotte Gilman. The book was given to me by a housemate my freshman year of college. There were around 30 of us living in a brownstone mansion that was converted into a dormitory. I was struggling with my self-esteem as a woman trying to get into radio broadcast journalism at the time and he basically thrust it at me and ordered me to read it. It helped for sure, and left a pretty big impact on me. I think I still have the book. I ended up changing my major to print journalism.