My new favorite.

I keep an ongoing list of books I'd like to read, and I love the summer because no school means I have a chance to scratch some of them off the list. I have recently added: The Time Traveler's Wife, The Bridges of Madison County, and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. There are so many works I want to indulge in, that I sometimes find myself overwhelmed. I'm always thinking: If only my job were to read, read, and read some more. What a profession!

I made a trip to the library last week, picked up a couple of the books listed above (along with Michael Parker's If You Want Me to Stay), and dropped off one of my new favorites, The Prince of Tides. This was my first reading and I will say, like so many others have before me, I felt as if I was reading poetry, rather than prose. I felt, so many times, that I should stop and record Conroy's lines, that I absolutely could not live without them tucked safely away, where I might return to them. I fell in love with the language and the story. I must say I was a bit sad as I sent the old, heavy hardback clunking down the cold, metal book return. I wanted to hold it in my hands, place it carefully on my bookshelf. A book like that doesn't belong in a dark box, waiting for someone to return it to its place. I cannot say I have ever felt this way about a novel before--poetry yes, but fiction? Nope.

What book makes you want to hold on forever?