Top Five Picks

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

The Holy Bible

Timeless Treasures

A Room of One’s Own, written by Virginia Woolf in 1929, is about women’s issues that are still relevant today: the importance of financial independence and time and space for quiet reflection. In an era when women still had few rights, Woolf possessed a strong voice and reminded women that they must continue to demand equal respect in all aspects of life.
Liz Matthews
Brooklyn, New York

My favorite book of all time is Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. I’ve read it many times, and each time I’m reminded that real love can triumph over seemingly insurmountable obstacles. And also that being denied something we want now doesn’t mean we’ll never realize it. Sometimes it only means the time isn’t right. If we’re patient, all things are possible.
Christine Liddick
Virginia Beach, Virginia

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a heartbreaking and beautifully written story. Shelley so eloquently illustrates and explores human emotion through her characters. Popular culture and movies have taken many liberties when retelling this story, which made reading Frankenstein for the first time even more illuminating. While this novel was published in 1818, it foreshadows many of the moral and ethical issues that we struggle with today.
Claire Washburn Berkoff
Chicago, Illinois

I love Moby Dick for its combination of humor and poetry and its relaxing, meditative pace alternating with breathtaking action scenes. For a while, this book made me think I loved whales, when actually what I loved was the beautiful writing and Herman Melville’s big heart.
Emily Goodman
Brooklyn, New York

My favorite book still has to be The Diary of Anne Frank. Since my childhood, I must have read this book at least five times, and I love it for the optimism, hope, and spirituality it exudes. Anne Frank has been a model of keeping family and spirituality alive even when life is at its very worst.
Laura Greenwald
Fort Defiance, Arizona

As a high school English teacher, I read, reread, and recommend Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke, to students all the time. If I have had an especially rough day or week at school, I read this book to remind myself of the mystical power of writing, and of the joys and hardships of living a truly creative life.
Tom Kellerman
Cincinnati, Ohio

On most weekends, my husband and I will pick a recipe or two from Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, and spend the day (or a part of it) cooking with our boys. It allows us time together: media-free, trying new dishes, and introducing our two children to the many joys of cooking.
Kerri Perry
Newbury, Massachusetts

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, has been my favorite since I first read it at the age of 16. Now that I’m 43, I still turn to this book when I have questions and am searching for answers. It is a masterpiece that simplifies the mysteries of our deepest expressions in our hearts and minds.
Vicki Waterman
North Smithfield, Rhode Island

I never tire of reading, and the longer the book, the better. The Count of Monte Cristo (all 900-plus pages), by Alexandre Dumas, taught me that no matter what life brings, I can’t control a lot of it. But by controlling how I handle those events, I can live peacefully and leave a respectful legacy.
Ileene Giering
Western Spring, Illinois

Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens. Hands down the silliest laugh-out-loud book ever published.
Donna Clare
Round Lake Beach, Illinois

My favorite book is one of the classics, Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. Although we still have a way to go, this story illustrates that women’s struggle for equality has, indeed, “come a long way, baby.”
Linda Neitzel
Farmington, Michigan

There is something about bittersweet, tragic love transcending all earthly bonds that really does it for me. I think nothing captures this kind of love more powerfully than Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.
Danika Dry-Rodriguez
Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, is by far my favorite book. Each time I read it, I think of my sisters and how thankful I am to have them. Each time I read the book, I call just to say I love them.
Tricia Mole
Hilton Head, South Carolina

With so many great books to read and so little time, I find myself returning to My Ántonia, by Willa Cather. It’s refreshing to read a book about real people with real-life problems. Watching them overcome their adversities and physical hardship in early-1900s rural Nebraska helps me put my own little troubles in better perspective.
Diannah Paradiso
Reading, Pennsylvania

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind has one of the best character developments I’ve seen. It’s a complete study of Scarlett that shows all of us many of our own personality traits — quirks, blind spots, strengths. An excellent mirror of the human being.
Jennifer Frye
Montoursville, Pennsylvania

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand uses a page-turner story to put forth her complex and radical philosophy of personal responsibility and disdain for some aspects of altruism and organized religion. It is volatile and intelligent, and whether you agree with her point of view or not, it provokes you to look at your own core beliefs and consider reevaluating the behaviors of others. It is definitely not for the narrow-minded.
Geri Moran
Elmsford, New York

I read The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, every year. As I mature, I understand and take away more from the book each time I read it. There are themes of family, generational clashes, money management, love, and filial responsibility. This book has taught me how to be a better mate to my boyfriend, a better daughter to my parents, and, more important, a better person.
Tiffany Chu
Hillsborough, California

I’ve had a relationship with my Webster’s Dictionary for nearly 20 years. It’s reliable and trustworthy; it solves problems, answers questions, and ends arguments — a book I can go back to time and time again.
Amy Zdenek
Kettering, Ohio