A few books I've picked up lately that I couldn't put down, that mesmerized, that impressed, or that I just thoroughly enjoyed:

1. Silas House's A Parchment of Leaves and Eli the Good

2. Meg Medina's Milagros

3. Michele Young-Stone's The Handbook for Lightening Strike Survivors

4. Danielle Trussoni's Angelology

5. Steve Berry's The Charlemagne Pursuit

If I had to narrow down my top ten favorites, I'd say (in no particular order):

1. Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

2. Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina

3. Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind

4. Dorothy Parker's Here Lies: Collected Stores

5. Katherine Neville's The Eight

6. Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo

7. Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest"

8. Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

9. E.M. Forester's A Room With a View

10. Lois Lowry's The Giver