Kristina's Book List: aka The Impossible to Compile, and More Impossible to Finish...

In Shakespeare: Texts and Contexts during the spring of 2007, my new friendship with one not-so-plain Jane--a college freshman of extraordinary English talents--proffered this book list. It includes 20 books, ranked 1 to 10, that the very well-read literary geek has given her stamp of approval. I've kept it with me, tacked on cork boards, stuck inside closet doors, and taped to folders. But now it's time to share this with the world.

1. anything by David Sedaris

2. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

3. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

4. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

5. The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost

6. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

7. Atonement and Saturday by Ian McEwan

8. Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

9. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

11. Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

12. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

13. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

14. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

15. The Corrections by Johnathan Lethem

16. Drop City by TC Boyle

17. You Shall Know or Velocity by Dave Eggers

18. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

19. The Hours by Michael Cunningham

10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy