Last week, my nephew was helping me unload the car after a shopping trip, and he noted two bags of books.

“Why did ya’ll buy all these books? Are you really that bored?” he said.

Books are about the least boring items I know, and reading is one of the pure, relaxing pleasures of my life. To aid in our selection of books for next year, my reading group (a gaggle of diverse and busy women) has decided to write a few brief sentences about five books that have inspired, confounded, agitated, stirred, excited or otherwise made us feel or learn something about ourselves and the world as we experience it. My list is too long. Here are few that may or may not make the cut.

“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain. My fifth-grade teacher Jackie Hall read this book to us every afternoon. We listened to all young Tom’s escapades with Huck and Becky Thatcher in 20-minute segments. It is the only time I remember being consistently read to as a child. It changed forever how I view reading aloud. Tom, Huck, and Becky Thatcher and a lot of fence painting – it’s a grand story at any age.

“The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. This 1922 classic on how love makes toys and us “real” is usually experienced young, but I did not read it until college. I fell in love with the beauty and hope of the story. It is a mainstay on my baby-buying gift list.

“Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White. Talking animals and a wise spider woman saves the day. What more could a budding feminist like myself have wanted as a child? When the big Hollywood production of Charlotte’s Web came out a few years ago, I skipped it. I couldn’t bear to replace the movie in my mind. It’s the first book I remember reading and crying. Hollywood couldn’t touch that.

“Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier. I first encountered the mansion known as Manderley and the mysterious Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter, while in high school. The second Mrs. de Winter remains unnamed in the 1938 novel, but the suspense, the foreboding, the murderous jealousy, and romantic longing for true love are palpable. This novel taught me power of place in a story.

“My Daddy Was a Pistol, and I’m a Son of a Gun” by Lewis Grizzard. Humorist and columnist for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the late Grizzard was a storyteller with a tuned ear for Southern country dialect and life in red-dirt Georgia. From the blue-collar to the high-dollar, he had them all pegged, and it’s a hoot. You will know these people. Most any of his books (all with amusing, catchy titles) will pick you up on a down day. Read one aloud, just to yourself, and if you don’t laugh, you may be more depressed than you know.

From now to the dawn of the new decade (six weeks away), most of us will be busier than usual and completely stressed. May I suggest you take 20 minutes here and there, even if you think you can’t spare them, and re-experience a favorite book or two and read aloud to yourself or others. It will give you something else to be thankful for this holiday, and it might just save your sanity, too.

A lifelong resident of Caldwell County, freelance writer Deanna Chester resides in Lenoir with her husband John, two cats, and two dogs Petey and Daisy. Her column, Spunk & Spice, can be found the second and fourth Sunday of the month in the News-Topic.