It’s date night! Instead of growing through all the trouble of cooking, booking a reservation, or even finding someone to go out with, why not just pour a glass of wine and settle down with the best lovers of all: books! Here are my picks for your date night tonight. Feel free to share your picks in the comments!
- Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman: Warm, inviting, and comforting, this book is a cozy chair to come home to after a long day. Laugh, cry, and exercise your parental instincts as you watch CeeCee grow and come to terms with her past and future.
- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie: With more than a dash of daring and quiet hints of mystery, reading this book is like conversing with truth, fear, power, and resounding determination. Not a bad way to spend a night, if you ask me.
- The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyami: This book is sweet and quiet, with notes of a haunting but beautiful sadness. Curl up together and watch the rain run down your window while you ponder the meaning of love and solitude.
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (the Norman Denny translation): If you’re looking for a long-term relationship, look no further than this sensitive but troubled French love. If you want to dive into questions of good and evil, the meaning of love and coincidence, and a world of immensely beautiful imagery, this is the book for you.
- Unspeakable Things by Kathleen Spivak: You’re serious sometimes, maybe a bit weird, and you’re looking for some dark eroticism; I get it, there’s no judgment here. If you’re not afraid of being confronted with the dark and twisted side of human sexuality, take a risk with this book. Everybody’s got to date a troublemaker once and a while, and this one is fearless.
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: Bold, sassy, and full of honesty, the friendship you develop with this book will tug at you deep down where it matters. Filled with intrigue and some captivating storytelling, this book is down-to-Earth in all the right ways.
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Are you sometimes overwhelmed by the intensity of your emotions? Do you tend to love the wrong person? If you do, you’ll find a kindred spirit in this classic tale of destructive love and passion gone wrong.