I keep a running list of the ten books I would have if I could only have ten books. This year, I’ve replaced four books, so this has been a pretty remarkable reading year.

Or, I’ve changed.

It’s probably a little of both.

These books are like friends, and I have to be able to call on them at a moment’s notice. Just knowing they are on the shelf makes me feel better.

Here’s the current list:

Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (So much wisdom and kindness that helps me to see a way to be in the world with gratitude and reciprocity.) *

The First Free Women, Matty Weingast Ed. (It’s like a companion book for me now, with such wisdom, and it feels so good in my hands. It’s missing from the picture because I’ve given it away–AGAIN–this time to a friend who just lost her mother. It’s the kind of book that can help with that.) *

Season of Fury and Wonder, Sharon Butala (Which replaced Butala’s The Perfection of the Morning, and thankfully, I don’t really have to choose between these two books since this list is not necessitated by lack of space or the need to keep everything I own in a back pack.) *

When I Was Young & In My Prime, Alayna Munce (Gosh, I loved it. I have to read it again, but for now, it’s on the list because–again–of the kindness that is evident throughout and the insight into the frailty of humans. *

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout (Oh, how I love a difficult woman.)

The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (I’ve studied it backwards and forwards, I wrote my MFA craft thesis on it, and never tire of it. A complex telling, a fascinating character, and such insight into the human condition. What is not to love?)

Fall On Your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald (An epic, multi-generational story in which the plot twists and turns. The characters live on in my heart.)

Pathologies, Susan Olding (I return to this book time and again in amazement.)

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (I have only read it once and have always meant to read it again, but now I am afraid that I won’t love it as much as I once did, that it will seem inevitable to me, and somehow tired, but it stays on the list.)

In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje (It’s the hometown setting–Toronto in all it’s glory, the historicity, the complexity of the telling and the flaws, the beautiful flaws, which in the hands of a writer like this makes one wonder if they are flaws at all.)

(* new addtions this year!)

Late addition: How could I have forgotten The Summer Book, Tove Jansson? My MFA mentor, Sandra Scofield, had me read it and I am so grateful. I just took it down from the shelf to read again as summer ends. It is lovely. So make that eleven books.