Celebrate joy!

One of the hardest questions to ask a book-lover is, "what's your all-time favorite book?" To which, I am sure would ensue a long and hard look at the ceiling as she ponders the answer to that question... And after much thought, would probably still fail to come up with just ONE. So I would not even attempt to do that. :P What I'll give you, though, are 8 books that really stuck to me through the years. Much like the movie, Train to Busan (if you haven't seen it yet, please do! It's a rocking movie about humanity and relationships... and yes, scary and fast-moving zombies that really bothered me on their speed, why are they so fast??!). These books sent my imagination off to places I never thought possible, whirled me to varying emotions -- including but not limited to -- soaking my pillow wet from tears, laughing out loud from witty dialogues, nostalgic turns that brought me back to memory lane and those poignant moments of just being deeply mov...

Neil Gaiman does it again. Many times while reading this book, I wondered, where does he get his imagination?? All characters just seemed to come together for this one... And when I say all, I mean ALL. There’s the girl who has the gift to open any doors, the marquis de carabas who you’re never quite sure is good or bad, the majestic thousand-year old angel, the woman hunter whose goal in life is to defeat the fiercest beast in town, and the rat speakers who well, interpret rat speak to people… and amidst these interesting and out-of-this-world characters is your-average Londoner named Richard Mayhem who was unknowingly thrown into an adventure to save another world.

I just finished "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman and loved it! This book won both the Newbery Medal and Carnegie Award, and I can see why.