Choose One

Next week celebrates the tenth annual Teen Read Week. Today’s teens are so active, getting every teen in America to read one book during that week would be a dream come true. This thought caused me to ponder the question, if I could read only one book a year, which would I choose? An impossible feat! Of course, there are the obvious – the Bible, a dictionary or thesaurus (is it possible to write an email much less a BLOG without checking a dictionary or thesaurus even once?) or the phone book (believe it or not I still can’t order a pizza from memory).

So many books to choose from! For our book club I was engrossed in The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Not once before this novel do I remember so fiercely desiring the death of the main character! If only Laura would freeze to death, fall through the ice, or be eaten by a waddle of penguins... (This is where the reference books come in handy – honestly, did you know what a group of penguins is called?) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was our teen book club choice. Humorous, frustrating, romantic, thrilling? Yes. The only book I could read this year? Hmm…

There is a lot of great literature on my shelves and so many inspiring choices that have changed my life, but I can’t choose just one book for enjoyment. Can you?

If you could only read one book this year purely for enjoyment, what would you recommend?