This list is very tough for me. I could do this list by genre, author, or reading level. Perhaps you would have a hard time listing top 10 movies or songs. The top 2 are the only books on the list where the position actually matters.
1. Little House on the Prairie- Laura Ingalls Wilder-The first book I read on my own. Began my love of reading and history. I can honestly say I would not be where I am today without this book.
2. Harry Potter-J.K. Rowling- "We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving." Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3. The Night Circus-Erin Morgenstern- A beautiful story. I wanted everything in my world to be black and white after I read it. “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane- Neil Gaiman- An amazing modern myth. “Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.”
5. Kingkiller Chronicles- Patrick Rothfuss- epic story. "Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts."
6. How Reading Changed My Life-Anna Quindlen- “The joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.”
7. The Serpent King- Jeff Zentner- when I finished this book my simple review was, "this is why I read". -“People live quiet lives and that's okay. There's dignity in that, no matter what you may think.”
8. Six of Crows- Leigh Bardugo- I love the world that she built. - “Six people, but a thousand ways this insane plan could go wrong.”
9. Die Young With Me- Rob Rufus- The true story of a teenager diagnosed with cancer and how music was the one thing that helped him get through his darkest days.
10. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talkin- Susan Cain- “There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
