Books That Even A Movie Snob Can Love

True, I may spend every waking moment of my life in passionate dedication to the movies. I may have more movies on my Netflix queue than there are books in the library. And yes, the thought of entering the movie section at Barnes and Nobel with a gift card in hand is almost too pleasurable for me to physically handle. However, I am not completely illiterate. In fact, I enjoy a good book just as much as the next self-proclaimed intellectual. So without further ado, here is a list of the books that I would read even on the opening night of a Tarantino movie.*

No, this one isn't on the list just to confirm that I am, in fact, an intellectual. Through its philosophy of the weightlessness of life, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera examines the fleeting artistry of politics, love, death, women, men, and above all, thought in a way that only an intellectual could appreciate.

Chocolate and Sandra Boynton. Need I say more?

I can think of no one who paints a better picture with words than my author friend, Judy Sutcliffe. "A Collection of Old Men" is a series of exquisite portraits of elderly gentlemen who entered her life at one point or another. It is modestly beautiful and refreshingly personal.

I'm not going to lie. I don't understand a word that ever dripped out of James Joyce's pen. Example: He gnawed on the recititude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life's feast.

But how can you not love that?

Yes. It is a dead-serious book on gnomes. Written by Wil Huygen, "Gnomes" is as interesting as it is irrelevant.

I can think of at least fifty authors whose way with words I dearly long to posses. Dean Bakopoulos is among them; but unlike Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and Shakespeare, Bakopoulos, who is a professor at Iowa State University, will inspire you to try. His book, "Please Don't Come Back from the Moon" is delicately surreal as it makes a point about our desire to fill in the blanks of life and society by replacing the absent and becoming absent ourselves, in return.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" is the darkest brand of comedy around. It is grotesquely, royally, bitingly, funny with dialogue the likes of which could only be found in a book.

Yes, I know it's on every ladies' book club reading list in the country, but "Like Water For Chocolate" is just about as sensual an allegory as you are likely to find. Dinner will never taste the same again.

The Mistress of Murder- The Dame of Death... I am an absolute sucker for anything Agatha Christie. It's the murder mystery genre the way it should be done... a deadly concoction of rapier-like wit, acute knowledge of human nature, and logic so airtight it just might take your breath away.

Bad pun intended.

*While waiting in line at the theater, of course.