I’ve really missed doing Friday Favorites, and since no one was currently hosting it, Cait @ Functionally Fictional decided to jump into the gap. Each week, she provides a prompt, and I get to talk about my favorite books that fit the topic. Feel free to join in – the more the merrier!

I must admit that it has been a long time since I’ve had to read a book for school. But in honor of my fading memory, I’m going to work backwards and start with grad school. Unfortunately, since I did my degrees in biology and mental health, I didn’t get to do a lot of reading that wasn’t just straight up scientific information. Every once in a while, I did get to read some really cool stuff. But they were few and far between, so don’t expect a bunch of books listed today. Here goes:

1. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl — I was assigned this book for a grad school course on death, dying, and bereavement, and it absolutely blew me away. I’ve recommended this book to so many people, and it just feels right to start my list with this book on the first Friday Favorites of Jewish Heritage Month.
2. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe — I remember reading this in high school, and it was one of the few that I actually liked.
3. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck — while this one wasn’t specifically assigned to the class, I did choose this book for my senior term paper in English class. It’s such a simple to read book, but it’s complex and multilayered, and offers social commentary on the Chinese society of the times.
4. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens — I was convinced that I’d hate this book, but as we read through it in class, I found myself liking the story far more than I had expected to. 

And that’s all I got. I was the kind of kid who did a lot of reading on my own, so maybe that overshadowed assigned reading? Or maybe I just blocked out any reading that wasn’t enjoyable? But this was everything I could come up with. What did you think of these books?