Holiday Reading: The Best Books of the Season

For as long as I can remember, the winter holidays meant savoring a great book on the beach. Growing up in Massachusetts, Christmas vacation meant a short flight to Miami Beach, escorted by an overly made up stewardess, to spend a week with my Nanny and Poppa.

After all, those were the days when a holiday meant your parents taking a well deserved break from you.  While my parents jetted off to Europe, I was diligently working on my baby oil tan and escaping into the romantic adventures contained in the stack of books I had checked out of the Worcester Public Library.

Thirty years later, I am living proof of the clichéd proverb, �??The more things change, the more they stay the same.�?�  It is no longer politically correct to take a vacation without ones children in tow, nor would I want to, but as a single, working mom, I am counting the days until our entourage of family and friends leave for the warm, sunny beaches of Cabo San Lucas.  At forty-five, finding a bathing suit that fits properly and bringing a hefty bag full of various sunscreens has become de rigueur, however, selecting what novels to pack in my already overweight suitcase is still a matter of the utmost importance. Even though I read and discuss books for a living, vacations are still the perfect time to get lost in another world, and continue my lifelong journey through literature.

Regardless of whether you are traveling this holiday season or staying close to home, reading an extraordinary book can change your life.  Literature has the unique power to be both a window to an unknown world and a mirror reflecting a reader's inner thoughts and feelings.  I have always believed that an exceptional book can inspire you to live a more passionate life.  Based on the number of women I have seen carrying around dog-eared copies of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, I am not the only one searching for more meaning in my life.  Ms. Gilbert's book is the Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret for our generation.  It is positive proof that even if we are wives, mothers, career women, or all of the above we are still struggling to find balance and to continue on a path of emotional, spiritual, and intellectual growth.  We might not have time to literally travel around the world between now and New Year's Eve, but we can take a novel journey through the pages of a book.

One of my favorite genres of books to read on vacation is historical fiction.  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See is a beautifully written story of mothers, daughters, female friendship, love and betrayal in 19th century China.  Despite the distant setting and time period, the contemporary issues of being a woman in a patriarchal society are relevant and thought provoking. I asked Lisa See, an author and mother for whom her book resonated with so many readers, what book inspired her to make a change in her life? 

�??It would be Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose,�?� answered the New York Time's bestselling author. �??I read that when my kids were very young.  I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I was writing, but it was all journalism and not very fulfilling for me.  I loved the book.  Right around that time my great aunt asked me to come over so she could tell me some stories.  Having read Angle of Repose, I saw how I might be able to tell my family's story.  In a sense, On Gold Mountain would never have been written -- and certainly not written the way it was -- with having read Angle of Repose.  I even used a quote from that book as the epigraph for On Gold Mountain:

"Fooling around in the papers my grandparents, especially my grandmother, left behind, I get glimpses of lives close to mine, related to mine in ways I recognize but don't completely comprehend. I'd like to live in their clothes a while..."

I'm still doing that in my writing and in my life!!!�?�

Turn the page for our holiday reading picks...

December 16, 2007