Jenny Collins is mom to two children, the editor of two magazines, and “in the middle of two midlife crises”, she says. This week she shares her best books, many of which mirror my own.
My top 5 favourite books are:
This was so tough for me as I have so many favourite books and for so many different reasons. These are the ones that stick with me though:
– The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffeneger
– I Know This Much Is True – Wally Lamb
– The Prince of Tides – Pat Conroy
– Sea Glass – Anita Shreve
– The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
My best chick lit book is… I have always loved Bridget Jones’s Diary but I am not a huge consumer of chick lit but I do think Bridget Jones remains the gold standard.
My best coffee-table book is… Ansel Adams’400 Photographs. I really wish I had this talent. It inspired me to try photography but I failed miserably at it. Henri Cartier-Bresson is another inspiration.
My favourite kids’ book growing up was… a book I thought was called Jane’s Adventures. After Googling it because my mom lost it in a move (I had been storing it for my own kids one day) I see it’s actually called Jane’s Adventures In And Out of The Book and it was written in 1966. I am still going to buy a copy for my son. Jane finds an old book in the castle she lives in (after her parents leave her behind and go on holiday!) and she escapes into the book and has fantastic adventures. It was just one of those books you wished had never ended.
My best self-help book is… I really don’t read self-help books at all. The only one I have read cover to cover was the Five Languages of Love. Meh.
The book that I’ll reread again and again is none. I have never read a book twice (barring of course the million reads of the same children’s books for my kids). There are just too many new experiences to be had!
What I’m reading now? The Vacationers by Emma Straub
If I was a writer, I wish I would have written… The Time Traveler’s Wife just because it’s so different or Harry Potter so I could be super duper rich. On that note, JK Rowling’s books as Robert Galbraith are really worth reading too!
My kids’ favourite books are… Dylan loves Enid Blyton: The Magic Faraway Tree – he loved that and now reads any Enid Blyton. Evan is a bit more picky but her favourite is bizarrely the Berenstein Bears Back In Bed – probably because she can “read” it herself as she knows the sequence and kills herself laughing every time she reads it!
My best author is… I have many. Wally Lamb, Douglas Kennedy (love his books and yet they don’t feature in my top five) – I definitely need more than just top five! I love Jonathan Kellerman for a good murder mystery and the Alphabet Series by Sue Grafton (while the plots are thin, I enjoy the thought of living like Kinsey Millhone)
