For the past few days I have been (re)reading all the Little House books – beloved books of my childhood.

When I was young, I loved them because the books were simple to understand and filled with mouth-watering descriptions of food. As I read them now, I started thinking of how much things have changed in the time between Laura’s life and my life.

The one thing that have struck me is the disparity in material and culinary richness, but also in people’s mindset. When Laura was five, her sister Mary had a proper rag doll. Laura, however, played with a corn cob wrapped in a napkin as a doll. A corn cob!

Finally, on Christmas, Laura received a rag doll, a pair of mittens, and a stick of peppermint candy cane. She was so happy that she could not say a word. Can you imagine only having candy once a year?

All foods were prepared at home. Even though the dishes sounded delicious, there was really no variety in terms of ethnic offerings. There were no pizza or potstickers or pho. No gelato or chocolate mousse. No tacos or teriyaki.

There was no expectation that little girls shouldn’t not have a corn cob, or that women should have more than a couple dresses a year. I can’t tell from the Little House series if the adults were ever ashamed of not having more – but I imagine that when one is living in the Big Woods, with wolves and bears for neighbors, the Joneses are pretty far away.

When Laura was sixteen, she worked as a schoolteacher and a seamistress’ assistant to earn money for her family. I have often wondered if she would’ve liked to go to college – that subject, I gather, was never even broached because the Ingalls could only send one daughter, Mary, to a college for the blind.

And now, we enjoy a level of material, culinary, and informational richness that would have been mind-boggling in Laura’s days.

Now that you have so graciously shared your recs with me, it’s my turn to return the literary love. Below are just some of the books that I love, and can read over and over again

The Hours by Michael Cunningham: A flawless weaving of the lives of three women, all tied to the novel Mrs. Dalloway: the incomparable Mrs. Woolf herself, a 1950s housewife in suburban America, and a 1990s lesbian writer in New York City. Gorgeous writing all around.

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. A collection of related short stories about the Vietnam War. I first read it for a summer report in high school – I bawled my eyes out because all the stories were so poignant and true – until the first day of class when the teacher said, you guys know it’s a work of fiction, right? It’s written on the inside jacket. I felt stupid. But that doesn’t change the fact that Tim O’Brien is a genius.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I don’t know if there is a seminal work on grief, but the seminal work for me would be this book by Ms. Didion. Her husband of 30+ years dies suddenly at the dinner table. The first two sentences: Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. The book is an attempt to figure out the how and when and where of the instant, and what lies beyond it.

The Naked Economist by Charles Wheelan. Even if you hate economics, I’d give this a strong recommendation. Dr. Wheelan covers the subject with witty & interesting anecdotes and easy-to-understand examples – not quite as quirky as Freakonomics but just as good. No dismal science here! Har har har.

I grew up in a book-lovin’ family, and I am a book-lovin’ gal. (I’ve also been listening to alot of country lately… so pardon me for that country-esque line).

Seriously – I’d like to ask for your recommendations on books to read.

Books on my To Check Out List include:

–> Ishmael – Daniel Quinn
–> Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert (probably have to wait until 2012 for this book to be available in the library seeing as that I’m #47236495330 on the wait-list)
–> Give Me The World – Leila Hadley
–> King, Kaiser, Tsar – Catrine Clay
–> Galileo’s Daughter – Dava Sobel

I am also partial to good chick-lit (I like the Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella).

If you think a book is worth reading – leave a comment (it’d be nice if you can write a tiny little blurb about it). I’ll add them on the list! Thank you.

Today was my lucky day because I found three books that I’ve been meaning to buy – all in excellent condition – at the local library sale.

I got Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Calvin Trillin’s About Alice, and Nathaniel Hawthrone’s The Scarlet Letter for $2 each.  And they were all in hardcovers too!

If you are looking for good books to read, I’d recommend all three. Calvin Trillin’s About Alice is very short (78 pages) and straight-forward, but there’s something about it that’s so good.

Calvin said that he got a lot of letters like the one from a young woman in New York who wrote that she sometimes looked at her boyfriend and thought, “But will he love me like Calvin loves Alice?” Sometimes it’s hard to express how you feel about someone else in writing, but Calvin does, with really simple words and phrases. It’s a love story, not a romance novel.