Fellow writer and all around really nice person Stephanie Lawton has nominated me for the Booker Award.

If you know me at all, you know this fits my philosophy in a rather scary way. The award targets literary and book-centered blogs. The rules are simple: post my top five books of all time, post the booker award icon, and nominate other bloggers to do the same.

My top five? (Can I just say this is almost cruel to have to choose only five) Here they are in no particular order:

1.

Books like PRECIOUS BANE are as rare as blue moons. A forgotten classic set in rural Shropshire at the turn of the 19th century blends a simple, rustic love story with a profound sense of nature’s mystic truth.

Prue Sarn is an original and appealing heroine of English literature as she triumphs over a physical handicap to win her heart’s desire. Skillfully woven through this story is the aura of the English countryside, its flora and fauna anticipating every turn of the plot.

Mary Webb’s work won her the admiration of her contemporary writers and in 1925 PRECIOUS BANE won the Femina Vie Heureuse prize.

2.

Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen’s most adult heroine.  Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy.  The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret.  When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne’s family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate.  All the tension of the novel revolves around one question:  Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?

3.

Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity.

She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman’s passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed.

With a heroine full of yearning, the dangerous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte Bronte’s innovative and enduring romantic novel continues to engage and provoke readers …

4.

(You may see this as cheating. Go ahead.)

Celebrating the birth of J.R.R. Tolkien, this centenary edition of the classic volume is illustrated with fifty specially commissioned paintings by an artist whose vision matches Tolkien’s own. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell, by chance, into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. From his fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, Sauron’s power spread far and wide. He gathered all the Great Rings to him, but ever he searched far and wide for the One Ring that would complete his dominion. On his eleventy-first birthday Bilbo disappeared, bequeathing to his young cousin Frodo the Ruling Ring and a perilous quest — to journey across Middle-earth, deep into the shadow of the Dark Lord, and destroy the Ring by casting it into the Cracks of Doom. The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard, Merry, Pippin, and Sam, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, Boromir of Gondor, and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.

5.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides — or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail — and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

There are soooo many more books I could list, it’s ticking me off actually. 🙂 Oh well …

And my five nominees (aka super fantastical individuals) to pass the award on to are as follows:

1. Jocelyn Adams

2. L.S. Murphy

3. Christie Rich

4. J.A. Belfield

5. Emi Gayle

What are your top five favorite books? You know, the ones you come back to and read over and over? Leave a comment and let me know! 🙂