timshel

i recently finished reading east of eden, which was suggested to me by lindsey in a comment on one of our posts that had to deal with mumford & sons. (what does steinbeck's re-telling of the book of genesis have to do with mumford? go find out. it's worth it.) don't let the large amount of pages ward you off. in fact, the book had become such a daily routine for me that i was surprised when i got to the end. no, wait, i've ALWAYS had a lot of pages left to read! now what? well, now i read extremely loud and incredibly close. a brilliant one as well. i know about that. anyway.
read them both. at first when i got lindsey's recommendation for east of eden i had no clue what it had to do with timshel...
sufficeth to say it has everything to do with timshel. i have now become a fuller and less ignorant human-being, which is just one of the pros to this.
and i kind of sound like an infomercial. okay, so, point? i need recommendations for more books to read. let me have 'em. and while we're at it, here's some books that have altered how i think:

my name is asher lev,
the chosen--chaim potok. (not CHaim. gggHI-um. yeah i'm a professional phonetician.)
the book thief--markus zusak.
the bell jar--sylvia plath.
eat pray love--elizabeth gilbert.
east of eden--john steinbeck.
extremely loud & incredibly close--jonathan safran foer.
someone like you,
the truth about forever,
actually all of them, especially the older ones--sarah dessen. (sarah dessen is the absolute only YA author i can stand. well, of all those in her genre, at least. sometimes cliche, but always truthful. real emotion and real events and the main point about every book is the heroine becoming herself. a love story is a side note. or a vehicle. i check yes to that.)
a mango shaped space--wendy mass.
tuesdays with morrie--mitch albom.
le petit prince--antoine de saint exupery (in french if possible)
no logo--naomi klein (please read this? so i can have someone to talk to about the issues of the advertising industry. haha...)
i seem to be a verb--r. buckminster fuller (so delightfully strange. if you have trouble with social philosophies of the sixties, don't read.)
a raisin in the sun--lorraine hansberry.
shug--jenny han.
thirteen reasons why--jay asher.
my life in france--julia child.
how to be an explorer of the world--keri smith. (try all her stuff. please.)


ah, what a pleasing list.
give me yours, please.

thank you, hannah