Cheater cheater pumpkin eater

I'm stealing this from my brother, who recently posted a list of ten book recommendations. I like the idea of that. It's not necessarily the best books I've ever read (although most of these fall into that category), or the most brilliant books I've ever read (and this category), or even the books that I would recommend to my English major friends (also true). Nope, this is just ten books I'd generally recommend to anyone.

My brother did these fantastic blurbs about each recommendation, explaining why the book is so good and why he'd recommend it. I'm not sure I'm awake enough for that. We'll see. I'm also not going to put these into any order, only because that takes more planning, or at least editing, than I'm willing to do right now.

Okay, enough with the caveats, the disclaimers. Let's just jump right in.

1. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck. This is on Bo's list too -- and there'll be more cross-over, I think. East of Eden can be a hard book to get into. It begins with geography, but stick with it, even for just a few pages, and you'll hit one of the most engaging and beautifully interwoven character stories ever written. It is, as you might imagine from the title, biblically based, but that's hardly the point, at least for those of us less religiously inclined. Beautiful imagery, complex characters, gorgeous writing. I would say it's Steinbeck's best. In fact, I might say it's the best novel I've ever read.

2. Although The Poisonwood Bible is pretty good, too. I'm a fan of Barbara Kingsolver in general, but The Poisonwood Bible goes beyond collections like Homeland and shorter works like The Bean Trees (both of which I love, too). It's the story of a missionary family living (or trying to live) in Africa and it's told, by turns, from the standpoints of the women in that family -- a mother and two daughters. Completely engrossing, beautiful, frustrating, heartbreaking, and the viewpoint and voice of Adah are just reems of poetry.

3. Without a Map, by Meredith Hall. Okay, truth time: I'm biased. I know Meredith Hall. But even if I didn't, I'd recommend this memoir. Reviewers keep calling it "unsentimental," and I couldn't imagine what that might mean, given the enormous heart of this woman. But they're right. Pregnant at 16, shunned from family, church, even town, we follow Hall from Maine to Turkey and back again, all the while aching for this struggling young woman trying to find her way back to the life she imagined for herself. That life, of course, is gone, but the one that she crafts is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It's such a completely engaging story and such lovely prose that you'll find yourself trying to slow down so it's not finished quite so quickly.

4. Lying, by Lauren Slater. Hall's memoir is just that -- memoir. Slater's memoir blows the doors off of that term. Long before the infamous "Million Little Pieces" scandal, Slater forced her readers to confront the line between fact and fiction in this "metaphorical memoir." Did Slater really have seizures or did she simply feel fractured, prone to fits and starts? Was she seduced at Breadloaf? Did any of this actually happen? Those aren't really the questions. The question is whether or not it matters.

5. Written on the Body, by Jeanette Winterson. This book drives my students batty. The prose is liquid, like rain. A reader stands under it more than she reads it. And the plot is, well, somewhat secondary. It's a standard romance novel, except it's anything but. The main character falls in love with a woman at the end of her messy marriage to an oncologist. Nothing surprising there. Here's the twist: you don't know if the main character is a man or a woman. And you'll be amazed, I think, at how completely obsessed you become with trying to figure that out.

6. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. A collection of essays on The Sims, The Real World, John Cusack, and Emo music (among other things), Klosterman is the king of all things pop. I like this book in part because I think I'd like him. He's rumored to be a total jerk, but I like to believe that's not true. He's sarcastic and funny and his brain is clearly firing in six directions at once. He writes like I think, like my brother talks, so reading this collection is like hanging out with family.

7. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers. My mom didn't much care for this book, so I should be careful putting it on my list of recommendations, but I'm going to stand by it, particularly if you're between 18-33. Eggers, like Klosterman and Slater, captures that postmodern sensibility, playing with identity and notions of truth. In a truly heartbreaking tale that begins with the death, in quick succession, of both of his parents, Eggers manages to be linguistically playful, personally endearing, and genuinely interesting. At least to me, anyway. Kelly and I met him at the CCCC in San Francisco and he signed our books. He was incredibly nice to us, chatting with me about teaching and the sheer panic of graduate students. He drew a dog's head in my book, writing next to it "Here is Steve." In Kelly's he drew Saturn in a box.

8. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. I hated Annie Dillard in high school. Why why couldn't the woman just say what she meant? What in the world was she saying? She drove me crazy. Annie, I'm sorry I misunderstood you. I was so very wrong. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a study in minutae. In looking closely. In the grand pause. Honestly, I'm not sure it's for everyone, but I would recommend that everyone give it at least a try. A collection of essays, it beings with the image of Dillard's cat leaping through the open window at night, kneeding her chest with bloody paw-prints, painting her chest in roses.

9. Running out of room fast here. Only two more recommendations to go. So I'm going to cheat and say all of the Harry Potter books. I know, I know, it's cheating. I already said that. If you haven't read these . . . well, I'm not sure what to do with you. If you're not a reader in general, I understand, but if that's the case I don't know why you've been reading through a list of books that you have no intention of picking up. If you are a reader and you're just shunning these because they're popular, get over yourself. They're well-written, funny, endearing, exciting, and moving.

10. Oh the pressure. Only one more book. Only one more book. A sentimental favorite: The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy. The movie doesn't even come close to doing this book justice. The way Conroy writes about geography, his gift for description, it's beautiful and gutting at the same time, as he brings the same attention to horrific violence that he does the smell of salt marshes in South Carolina.

Now, two essay recommendations: "The Fourth State of Matter" by Joann Beard and "The Inheritance of Tools" by Scott Russell Sanders. Gorgeous. When my friend Anne was teaching first-year and creative nonfiction writing she would tell students, when they were to discuss a very few particular essays, that if they didn't like these it was evidence that they didn't have a soul. These two essays fall into that category for me.

And a few books that I want to recommend, but I'm not sure they're for everyone: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Pale Fire by Nabokov, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose, and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

I'm a total cheater, I know.