Top Five: What Books Are on Your List?

Your favorite books say a lot about who you are and who you want to be; who you are afraid of being.
So I am interested to know: What books are on your top five list and why?

My list reads a bit like the reading requirements for a twentieth century literature class, perhaps because that is where I have done the majority of my reading in the last five years, but, nevertheless, these are the books that thrill me, inspire me, captivate me, humble me and make me want to be something better.
In no specific order:

1. The Sun Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway

"Isn't it pretty to think so"

2. Lolita: Vladimir Nabakov 

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: tip of the teeth and the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta." 

3. White Noise: Don Delillo

"What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation." 

4. Across Painted Deserts: Donald Miller

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God."

5. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: Tom Stoppard


"Audiences know what they expect and that is all they are prepared to believe in."






These all changed my mind in a big way about what I wanted out of life, and what I expected. I, of course, highly suggest reading any and all of them, if you haven't.

What makes your top five list? Why?