sticky books.

A list of 15 books that will always stick with me?

Provided in 15 minutes or less?

You're on.

1. Anthem, by Ayn Rand

2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

3. A Good Man Is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor

4. Bloomability, by Sharon Creech

5. Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery

6. An Old-Fashioned Girl, by Louisa May Alcott

7. Confessions, by Saint Augustine

8. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

9. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

10. Under the Overpass, by Mike Yankowski

11. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

12. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

13. How Reading Changed My Life, by Anna Quindlen

14. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

15. The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank

Actually, that was harder than I thought. The first 10 were easy, but then I had trouble. Because, truthfully, how do I pick just 15? (And, for the record, I consider the Bible a category all its own. So please do not judge me because it's not on this list.) So, I just had to go with my gut.

Not all of these are fabulous, famous works of literature. But each of these is a book I remember. Each of these book tells a story. (Duh.) What I mean is, each of these books tells my story.

I remember where I was, what I was doing, who I was when reading these books. I remember putting Pride and Prejudice down in disgust the first time I read it. "Who reads this kind of stuff?" I remember thinking. Silly, silly me.

I remember re-reading An Old-Fashioned Girl almost every summer. I still feel in so many ways like Polly: a little out of place, but confident in who I am and what I'm doing.

I became obsessed with the Salem witch trials after The Crucible. Cried in bed reading Gilead. Visited the Holocaust Museum and secretly mourned the loss of Anne Frank. Got caught up in the story of Zelda and F. Scott during The Great Gatsby.

Who I am I owe in part to the books I read. And I guess these books make up the biggest part of me.

Here's to reading!