My top 14 books of all time are as follows, in the following order—as in, if I was allowed only 14 books to bring to a deserted island where I was marooned for the rest of my life, these are what I would pack:

1. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabo)
2. Orphan Master's Son (Adam Johnson)
3. The Mummy Market (Nancy Brelis), tragically out of print, which makes ZERO sense because it's a classic
4. The Incarnations (Susan Barker) AMAZING
5. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
6. Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
7. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
8. Swamplandia, and every single word ever written by: (Karen Russell)
9. Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)
10. The Keep, Jennifer Egan
11. The Sea (John Banville)
12. Someone Else's Love Story, Joshilyn Jackson.
13. Kiss the Girls (Patterson)
14. The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah Further to my literary likes, I consider Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Charles Dickens to be actual, literal geniuses; if we had brain scans of their brains, we wouldn't understand what we're seeing. I prefer more prose than dialogue; prefer poetry over intricate plot, but love if I can have both (hence, Love in the Time of Cholera being #1 and Orphan Master's Son #2). But I'm never really consistent with this anyway. If I'm pulled to keep reading the book, I'll keep reading the book. My reviews are all and will only ever be of books I love. I do not finish books I don't like, so it's not fair for me to review them.