The best books that will make you fall in love with reading

Ellison taught me a novel can sound like music.

Using only words on paper Ellison performs a long jazz improvisation that will enrapture you from the first line to the last. The book is about a black man in 1930s America who struggles to be seen in a society who not only refuses to acknowledge his existence, but does everything in its power to crush him into nothingness.

Check out this first line: “I am an Invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind.”

You will walk away from this book believing in the talent of this incredible writer. 

Books that make readers fall in love hook readers with the very first line.

When I read this tale in grad school, I did so slowly, savoring every word because of the opening lines: “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.”

The book continues with the story of Janie Crawford in 1930s Florida. You will see through Janie eyes and hear her heartbeat as her search for love culminates in a threat to her freedom. You won’t regret taking this journey with Janie.

As a literature major I’ve always been fascinated by the conversation authors have with each other via their work, conversations that sometimes span decades or centuries.

I was immediately captivated by the title of Maya Angelou’s famous 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings because I recognized that Angelou was engaging in a conversation. The title comes from a poem called “Sympathy” written by African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in 1899.

Dunbar writes of the mystery of a bird who sings even while beating its wings bloody against the bars of its cage. Angelou answers Dunbar’s question in the pages of her memoir. The bird’s song is not a plea to heaven as Dunbar poem states.

Instead, for Angelou, it’s a song of freedom by a woman who overcomes racism and oppression to live a full, rich life. Both the poem and the book taught me to use other works as inspiration for the stories I tell. 

Walker’s Jubilee extends the slave narrative, a popular weapon used by abolitionists to fight slavery. Instead of ending when the main character escapes their cruel master, Walker tells the story of a woman’s journey from emancipation to reconstruction and beyond.

I included this book not only because of a great beginning, but also because I wanted to give an example of how important story is to the success of a book, and in some cases more important than the language.

Besides, how can you not read on after a first chapter with the title, “Death is a mystery that only the squinch owl knows”? 

This book demonstrates that prose doesn’t have to be lyrical to leave an indelible impact on readers.

Lutie Johnson is a single mother living in a rundown building on the street. Her desires are simply articulated as are the barriers keeping her from achieving them. Lutie spends most of the novel dodging the clutches of men who think they deserve her just because they desire her, and a neighborhood snake-eyed madam who wants to exploit Lutie’s beauty.

Petry begins the book describing a cold November wind and continues with an icy precision that will entrance the reader until the very last page.