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The ongoing “Best of 2009” idea continues with: What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

I got back into the groove of reading this year, and I couldn’t be happier! I read a lot of great stuff, but if I had to choose my top three, they would be:

1.The Road

2.Derby Girl

3. Coraline (read the book before the movie)

These three couldn’t be more different if they tried, yet they all gripped me so that I couldn’t put them down, and thinking about them makes me remeber exactly where I was reading them. The funny thing about all three though, was that they were all made into movies this year too!

1. I started reading The Road because I wanted to finish it before the movie came out. It is a smaller book, but by no means is it an easy read. Cormac mcCarthy manages to pack a punch with very little dialogue. I read a lot of this by globe light curled up in bed, thankful I had a warm bed to snuggle into unlike The Man and The Boy. The emotions are so raw and really, their love is all they have to survive.

2. I read this on the train to Albuquerque and finished it very quickly. I wished this book was around when I was in high school. I know it will be a book I will give to my daughter to let her know it’s okay to be different. Shauna Cross is an engaging writer who instead of letting you watch a scene unfold brings you in and makes you her bff through her speech.

3. This one I read in a rental car in rainy L.A. in February. I remembered the trees around me were all gnarled and crazy bodhi-esque, so I curled up with my blanket and dove into my book. I am happy to say the movie is aesthetic-wise, just how it was imagined in my mind. This is a book I will be giving to my kids (and nieces and nephews) with a message that a girl can do anything she sets her mind to. Including rescuing her parents.

By the by, three books I love to reread: Weetzie Bat, Warrior of the Light, and DV.