Some of my very favorites, but not exactly light reading. But oh, what great stories. What characters. If you stay with the book, the characters will grab on and refuse to let go.

In this pile, Wrongful Death is probably the novel that you have to read most closely and carefully in the first couple chapters. After that it takes off like a rocket. Some of the most amazing female characters I have ever run into.

Possession is also a demanding, but extremely rewarding read. It's got two love stories (one in the Victorian era, and a parallel one in the modern era), a mystery, a sendup of academics and lit-crit types, and a final major scene in a graveyard in a howling thunderstorm. What more could you ask of a novel? Okay, here it is: beautifully, stunningly written.

What can I say about Niccolo but this: when Bookseller Chick asked which character from a novel you'd want to sit down and talk to, Niccolo came to mind immediately. Niccolo Rising is not a quick read. I've read it (and listened to it on audiotape) at least ten times and I'm still taken aback and surprised every time. Set in fifteenth century Bruge, France, Switzerland, Italy. It will take your breath away.

A Soldier of the Great War is about just that: as a young man, Alessandro Giuliani fights for Italy in what we call the first world war, and what was called in his time The Great War. They couldn't imagine a war that might be more destructive. It's true that the devastation was horrific and unprecedented but we do seem to be determined to top that. We first meet Alessandro as an old man, and he tells his story to a young man as they walk through the night from Rome into the mountains. I always cry when I read this novel. Always. One caution, though: Helprin is better with male characters than with female. His women tend to fall into the madonna or freak categories, which in any other book would be the kiss of death for me. So you see it must be something extraordinary if I can look past that.

I'm not going to say anything about Bride of the Wilderness except that it is my favorite historical novel set in colonial New England. Hands down.

And then there's one of mine in the pile, too. Signed.

I'll leave you to consider this pile and the other one. Next week I'll post instructions on how to get into the drawing. I'll send the books anywhere -- but if they end up going out of the U.S., they'll be coming by boat rather than airmail.

And on to the next pile.