If there is only one book you ever read.....

Obviously, this was not my first time reading Harper Lee's wonderful TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, but reading it as an adult vs. reading it as a young person are vastly different!  I loved the book when I first read it more than 25 years ago.  I have always remembered it and have told anyone who would listen that it's one of THE greatest books ever written and that it should be REQUIRED reading for EVERYONE.  Reading it again as an adult, it's still one of THE greatest books ever written and I still believe that it should be REQUIRED reading for EVERYONE.  It seriously is just THAT GOOD.  Thank you, Harper Lee, for writing such an amazing story.  I can't wait for the new book being released later this year!!!!

My most favorite book--ever

I LOVE Olive Ann Burns' COLD SASSY TREE.  I read it for the first time back in the late eighties/early nineties and loved it even then.  My first reading was because my brother brought the book home during a weekend home from his first semester at college so I could read it for him for his freshman composition class.  I was happy to do it.  This is THE best book!!!

How does anyone not love this book?  It has someone being run over by a train--and living.  Romance.  An older man getting married to a much younger woman just 3 weeks after the death of his first wife.  Suicide.  (Not that suicide makes a story great.  It's just the way it's dealt with.)  A "funeral party."  Dyin' stories, because Grandma was the best in the county at telling 'em.  It's set in the south with southern slang.  It's set in 1906--when cars were first being introduced to the mass public.  It's told from the perspective of a 15-year old boy.

And it was written by an amazing woman who should have lived long enough to write more!  She started a sequel to COLD SASSY, but she died before she finished it.  Ovarian cancer, I think it was.  I find Burns' writing process to be just as fascinating as the book itself--she would get an idea and write it on whatever piece of paper she could get her hands on--napkins, receipts, corners of notes, etc.--then she would sit on her bed with all of her scraps of paper around her and work on putting them together to create a cohesive whole.

I, for one, believe that she was quite successful in her attempt.  I LOVE COLD SASSY TREE......Everyone should read it, truly.