Only good reason for missing book club? Meeting one of my top 5 favorite authors

I wrote this article back in 2014 and I have met one of the three authors who are still living. Next Wednesday I get to meet another. Dorothea Benton Frank is the ultimate sweet tea, toes in the sand, beach read author. She writes about my favorite place and made it come alive for me before I ever set foot there. I love my book club girls and I am sorry to miss an evening on Lisa's boat, but it can't be helped. I am beyond excited to hear Benton Frank speak at the Woodneath Library next week.

5 Books I Can’t Live Without

This article first appeared on Yahoo Voices! May 21, 2014

Books, to those of us who love them, are a necessity for life. As we go through our reading lives, we may read hundreds, even thousands, of books, but there are always a few titles that reward us with more than entertainment or knowledge. These books become part of our being. Their images live in our minds. Their characters are as real to us as our dearest friends. These are the books that we return to over and over again. These are our personal “classics.” If I could only take five books to a deserted island, these would be my choices, my classics.

The Young Adult Classic

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

This book makes the cut because Lucy in the snow beneath the lamppost is the first literary image that is a permanent fixture in my mind’s photo album. I found her in a box at a garage sale when I was 11, and she has been with me ever since. This old, musty hard cover copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book that I would ever read more than once because C.S. Lewis did what every author hopes to do. He transported me to a non-existent place and made me believe again and again. He opened up my young mind to all the powers of good and evil, and he made me see how hard the choice between the two could be. Twenty-five years later I still find myself going back to Narnia when I want to be lost in another time and place.

The Beach Read

Sullivan’s Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Benton Frank made me fall in love with the Low Country of South Carolina long before I ever set foot on its beaches. Sullivan’s Island makes the cut because if I can only escape in my mind, the Low Country is where I want to be. Livvie, a Gullah woman of slave decent who cares for the dysfunctional family, is the character that still visits me when I least expect it. Her voice has even prompted me to include her culture as a major part of a novel I’m currently planning. Since I didn’t grow up Southern, Benton Frank’s version of it is the next best thing.

The Heroic Adventure

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

I would like to take the liberty of including the series as one book. I cannot live with out Harry and his friends in my life, plain and simple. With each read something new is gained or realized. I could never tire of them. But you want me to choose one book, right? If I must, it would have to be Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I enjoy it the most because the whole story matures during this book. The characters, the friendships, the element of danger, Voldemort; everything changes. Because I know the story inside and out, this turning point book is the one I would read over and over if I could choose only one.

The Literary Classic

The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor

There is no work of literature that has left so many images in my mind that horrify me, make me rethink life in general, and humor me in such dark ways, often all within a few pages. So many of her stories are worth reading time and again. Lucky for me they are all in one hefty volume to delight or terrify me all my reading life.

The Undefined, Everything Genre

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon

While I consider myself a serious fan of one other series I may have mentioned earlier, I am completely, 110%, totally obsessed with the epic series Gabaldon has created. This series cannot be defined by genre because it has everything any reader could need. Love, honor, sacrifice, scathing impropriety, time-travel, history lessons, wars, castles, kilts, witches, secret pasts, hidden futures…you get the idea. The only real obsession I have ever had revolves around the lives of Jamie and Claire. I will not choose one book in this series. I can’t. I will take them all with me if this desert island exile ever comes true. Hopefully, it can wait until June 10th when the newest book in the series, Written in My Own Heart's Blood, arrives in my mailbox.