People occasionally ask me how I became a writer; and my standard answer is, “I was raised in a family of readers.”

And over the years I’ve read thousands of books (that I can remember by title and author, that is). Not counting comic books. Not counting textbooks. Oh, and not counting my own books.

So, when I sat down recently to try to list my favorite fifty books, I faced a daunting task. I absolutely love books, and there have been so many good ones that narrowing them down to a list of fifty seems a lot like picking a favorite child or grandchild.

But I did it (not the child or grandchild thing—the book thing). I present below my list, which excludes books I wrote or represented for my clients as a literary agent, which are all, of course, the best of the best. It also excludes the works of Shakespeare because I approach them as plays, not as books, per se.

I’m not saying these are the greatest books ever written (though some would qualify) but that these books have either changed my life or brought me so much pleasure or made me think or are just so flat-out wonderful that they make the top few percent of all the books I’ve ever read.

They are listed in roughly the order I read them (as well as I can remember at my advanced age) and with an asterisk by those I’ve read more than once:

The Mouse and the Motorcycle (Cleary)*
Emil and the Detectives (Kastner)*
My Side of the Mountain (George)*
Portrait of a Prophet (Hall)
A Man Called Peter (Marshall)
In His Steps (Sheldon)*
Winnie the Pooh (Milne)*
The House at Pooh Corner (Milne)*
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Lewis)*
Helps to Holiness (Brengle)*
The Maltese Falcon (Hammett)
With Christ in the School of Prayer (Murray)*
Sit Walk Stand (Nee)*
Dracula (Stoker)
Walden (Thoreau)*
Exodus (Uris)
Alaska (Michener)
The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)
David Copperfield (Dickens)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
The Pillars of the Earth (Follett)
Spoon River Anthology (Masters)
The Indian in the Cupboard (Banks)*
The Daughter of Time (Tey)*
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Dillard)*
The Writing Life (Dillard)*
Robinson Crusoe (Devoe)*
Knowing God (Packer)*
Pudd’nhead Wilson (Twain)
Bird by Bird (Lamott)*
The Orchard (Robertson)
Treasure Island (Stevenson)
Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly (Dawn)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving)
Traveling Mercies (Lamott)
The Cloister Walk (Norris)
Women in the Church (Grenz)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Tolkein)
The Contemplative Pastor (Peterson)
A Diary of Private Prayer (Baillie)*
Prayer (Foster)
Answering God (Peterson)
Leap Over a Wall (Peterson)*
Hannah Coulter (Berry)
The Challenge of Jesus (Wright)
People of the Book (Brooks)
Jayber Crow (Berry)
Virgil Wander (Enger)
True (Kennedy)

Okay, so maybe it’s cheating to list the Lord of the Rings trilogy as one; but it’s my list, okay? Make your own. And let me know what’s on it.