ten day challenge, day seven

Day seven!  Who could have predicted I'd get this far??  Ten secrets, nine loves, eight fears, seven wants, six places, five foods, four books, three films, two songs and one photo of yourself.

Now, this one might be a hard one because how can I narrow down the number of books that I've loved down to a paltry four???  Well, here's my best attempt!  I'm going to try to name books that I haven't blogged about before so please don't yell at me for not including Twilight or Harry Potter.  You know I love those books already!

1.  What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg.  I read this at least ten years ago and it was the first time that I fell in love with prose in book.  It was the first time that imagery in a book captivated me.  It was the first book I read by Elizabeth Berg and honestly, I don't know what made me pick up this book, but after reading it I picked up more and read several more of her books and loved all of them.

2.  This is more of a love of this series.  There are five books in this series; The Camel Club, The Collectors, Stone Cold, Divine Justice & Hell's Corner.  The series follows a strange group of friends led by a man who calls himself Oliver Stone.  The Camel Club is what they call their group in which they record and discuss the strange things they see happening around the White House.  Their 'job' is to examine the conspiracy theories they hear and decide if they're worth attention.  Of course, nothing about them is official and no one would really take them seriously until they discovery a theory that is more conspiracy than theory.  Oliver is one of the best bad ass characters in literature today.  He's up there with Jack Reacher, but almost better because you only get to learn bits of his life book by book.

3.  The title says it all.  Intensity by Dean Koontz was ridiculously intense. There was a so-so TV movie based on the book, but really, you must read the book.  Chyna is visiting her college friend's family for the holidays in Napa.  Sometime during the night she's awakened by strange, ominous noises and discovers her friend's family brutally murdered.  She hides from the intruder (who has no idea she's there) until she realizes her friend is still alive and the murderer is going to take her with him.  Determined to save her friend she begins a harrowing journey chasing after a madman.

4.  I accidentally read this book before its predecessor Women of the Silk.  Gail Tsukiyama is half Japanese, half Chinese and has written several books that follow either Japanese of Chinese characters.  The Language of Threads takes place before and during Japan's occupation of Hong Kong in the 1930's.  I never knew the history of Japan and China during the war.  I was always focused on the U.S.'s history of Japan and Japanese Americans so reading about the things that Japan had done in China was quite eye opening.  But beyond the history lesson The Language of Threads was rife with Pei's loyalty and true honor despite the hardships she must endure to take care of the people who, though not blood relatives, are the truest of family to her.

Yep, that was hard.  Maybe someday I'll do my list of all the books I've ever loved.  That would be an epic post!

Stay tuned for the last few days of the Ten Day Challenge!