Hillary Corbett

is the former Website Coordinator for the Harvard Book Store. She holds a master's degree in Information and Library Studies from the University of Michigan, and an undergraduate degree in English and History from the University of Massachusetts. She lives in a big yellow house with four people, four cats, and one non-functioning washing machine.

Fiction Favorites

• Anything by Margaret Atwood. Start with her first, , and keep going. Don't miss her poetry and essays, either.
• , by Michael Ondaatje. Much better than , in my opinion (although that was a good one, too).
• , by Banana Yoshimoto. Beautifully written and well told, about a young Japanese woman who loves kitchens. Her other novel, , is good, as well.
• The Millstone, by Margaret Drabble. Witty, well-written tale of an "unwed mother" in 1960s London.
• , by Joy Kogawa. A fictionalized account of the author's girlhood experiences in a Canadian internment camp for Japanese immigrants during World War II.
• , by David Lodge. An absolutely hilarious account of academia. See also Kingsley Amis's classic, .

Children's/Young Adult Books

• The Anne of Green Gables series, by L.M. Montgomery. They're classics in every sense of the word. The films don't hold a candle to the depth and breadth of Montgomery's writing.
• The Betsy-Tacy series, by Maud Hart Lovelace. Follow aspiring writer Betsy Ray and her best friend, Tacy Kelly, from kindergarten through high school, the Great World, and marriage. Perhaps one of the finest series of books ever written (in my opinion, anyways), with beautiful illustrations by Lois Lenski and Vera Neville. They've recently been re-issued in paperback.

Nonfiction

• Anybody Can Do Anything, by Betty MacDonald. Screamingly funny account of her family's life during the Depression in Seattle. By the author of the (equally good) autobiographical books The Egg and I, The Plague and I, and Onions in the Stew, other books in the series.
• Fault Lines, by Meena Alexander. Fascinating autobiography of an Indian-born writer who came to live in New York by way of the Sudan.
• The Logophile's Orgy, compiled by Lewis Frumkes. If you've ever made a list of your favorite words (or even thought about it), you might like to learn about some other (famous) people's favorites. It's worth it just to see how many people ripped off Mark Twain's list.
• The Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen. I'm not the kind of person who keeps fresh cilantro and bulgur wheat around the house, so I've only made a few things out of this cookbook, but it's worth having just for looking at (and "Moosewood" is such a good word...).

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