Simon's right, I can't resist making a list like this. I don't think I've ever tried to come up with an alphabetical list of favorite authors/books. This was actually sort of hard to do. Some letters were easy and I could come up with multiple favorites (how to choose between Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood?). Other letters I could list books I'd like to read, and would probably love. I had to resort to looking through my Library Thing catalog to remind myself of books I read a long time ago. So, last name first:
- ATWOOD, Margaret - The Blind Assassin
- de BERNIERES, Louis - Corelli's Mandolin
- COLLINS, Wilkie - Armadale (anything by Wilkie Collins!)
- DU MAURIER, Daphne - Frenchman's Creek (or maybe Rebbecca)
- ELIOT, George - Middlemarch
- FORSTER, E.M. - Howards End
- GILLARD, Linda - Emotional Geology
- HARRIS, Joanne - Chocolat (I've read this several times and love it more with each reading)
- ISHIGURO, Kazuo - The Remains of the Day
- JAPRISOT, Sebastien - A Very long Engagement (his noir crime novels are also excellent)
- KUNDERA, Milan - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- LEE, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
- McCARTHY, Cormac - All the Pretty Horses
- NESBO, Jo - The Redbreast
- O'BRIEN, Edna - The Country Girls Trilogy
- PANTER-Downes, Mollie - One Fine Day
- QUINDLEN, Anna - How Reading Changed My Life (this is almost just a long essay--highly recommended!)
- RAYBOURN, Deanna - Silent in the Grave (one of my favorite new mystery discoveries)
- SMITH, Dodie - I Capture the Castle (Wonderful book!)
- TAYLOR, Elizabeth - Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (I want to read more Elizabeth Taylor)
- UNDSET, Sigrid - Kristin Lavransdatter (historical fiction at its best)
- VINE, Barbara - A Dark Adapted Eye (or maybe Anna's Book, though anything by her really!)
- WATERS, Sarah - Fingersmith (one of my favorite reads last year)
- X
- YOUNG, Angela - Speaking of Love
- ZAFON, Carlos Ruiz - The Shadow of the Wind (I think he's written a sequel to this)
Of course in a month this list could change...Some of these books I've read multiple times and most of them I could happily start rereading right now! Anyone else want to play along?