I suffer from Bibliophilia

I read quite a lot. I'm often tired in the morning from reading too late into the night. I keep whatever I'm reading with me at all times, stealing moments to savor it in carpool lines, doctors' offices, wherever.

I took my degree in Literature, because it allowed me to get credit for reading and forming opinions about what I'd read. It seemed almost a racket to me, like getting credit for breathing, so naturally does reading come to me.

Nine Works of Fiction I Have Enjoyed, Even on the Reread
in no particular order
1. Midaq Alley - Naguib Mahfouz
2. Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
3. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez
4. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino
5. Baumgartner's Bombay - Anita Desai
6. A Question of Power - Bessie Head
7. Dita Saxova - Arnost Lustig
8. Herzog - Saul Bellow
9. Laughter in the Dark - Vladimir Nabokov

Why nine? Why not one more for an even ten? I find lists of ten

banal
adjective
Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite.
[USAGE NOTE The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English... ...When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one.]
"banal." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 30 Dec. 2005. http://www.answers.com/topic/banal

I've never read a work by any of the above authors that didn't appeal to me, actually.

If I had to pick one that is my absolute favorite, it's Love in the Time of Cholera, which makes me feel - and this is an odd word, but the right one nonetheless - immersed.