342,745 Ways to Herd Cats Reading Challenge

bottle_of_sunshine has issued such a cool reading challenge that I can't resist participating. It's dead easy, too. Just post ten books you love. Then go look at other peoples' lists and choose three books to read between 1 May and 30 November. Read them. Write reviews.

And that's it.

Three books in six months? Oh, I think I can manage that.

Here are ten books I love to pieces and have re-read often enough I don't really re-read them so much as re-remember:

Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte
Deerskin by Robin McKinley
Changeling Sea by Patricia McKillip
Anne's House of Dreams by L.M. Montgomery
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
Working Parts by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Stir-fry by Emma Donoghue
Archangel by Sharon Shinn
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

I guess my tastes run more toward popular fiction than Literature, which is amusing as I was Literature student and have read (and appreciated) many great works of the English Literary Canon. However, there is a great difference between appreciation and love -- while I appreciate Sons and Lovers and recognize its literary superiority over Stir-fry, my favorites (homely as they may be) are favorites because something in me went ahhhhh the first time I opened them (and continues to go ahhhhh even now).

What will my three selections be? I don't know! It feels like it should be easy to pick, considering I've already read so many of them, but it's still too hard. I'm thinking:

The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen