here are a couple of the books I can highly recommend reading... books that made me just... fly...
The Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins - wonderful... filled with magic, smells and love and I think my no1 favorite
Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
By the River Pedra I sat Down and Wept - Paolo Coelho
Eleven Minutes - Paolo Coelho
Veronika Decideds to Die - again Paolu Coelho
The Power Book - Jeanette Winterson
Like water for Chocolate - Laura Esquvil (can't spell her surname)
eva Luna - Isabel Allede
these books are all just delicious to read. Filled with truths (for me anyway :)) Truly. They tickle and touch and stir something deep within....
RE: some of my favorite books
I read Like Water for Chocolate when I was in my late(ish) teens and loved it - thank you for reminding of it. I read it on being parted from my first love, an amazing person I met when I went on a school exchange to Cape Town. (it was all very romaintic and tragic - that relationship! And of course the book)
I've also read the Mists of Avalon in my gap year between school and uni - it sits on my book shelf staring at me, tempting me to pick it up and read it again, but I dont have enough spare hours at the moment to leave this world.
I also love all of Isabel Allende's books - particulary Eva Luna.
I've just ordered Aphrodite from Amazon - have you read it?
I've also just order By the River Pedra I Sat Down and Wept - I've heard so many good things about this book.
We seem to have similar reading taste.
Happy reading - i have no doubt with such great taste!
Jennifer
RE: some of my favorite books
Like Water For chocolate is one of my favourites too, plus anything by Isabel Allende (but didn't care so much for Of Love and Shadows, which I found very painful to read - must have touched a nerve). Have you read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole? It's tragic but hilarious at the same time, if you like that sort of thing. I also like the author Jostein Gaarder - Sophie's World, the Christmas Mystery etc. The latter is delicious and great for this time of year. I also loved Miss Garnet's Angel but can't remember who wrote it (got my mum and sister hooked too). I love comfort reading, books are food for the soul. Also anything by Tracey Chevalier such as Girl with a Pearl Earring. And you can't beat Meera Syal either.
Haha, look what you've started Trixxi!
RE: some of my favorite books
More fave books - great. 
Mine are:
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulkes
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
Memoirs of a Geisher
Gone with the Wind (again!)
Captain Corelli - Louis Bernieres
Angela's Ashes - the film I thought was terrible
Notes from a small Island - Bill Bryson
RE: some of my favorite books
My Favourite top 5 Books are:
Marco Polo by Gary Jennings
The Perfume by Patrick Susskind
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
Heartsong by James Welch
She by Sir Rider Haggard
RE: some of my favorite books
Some of the books mentioned are my favorites too...Like Water for Chocolate, The Mists of Avalon, Alias Grace, Angela'a Ashes, Gone with the Wind (my don't we all have good taste ;)) Some other favorites of mine are...Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells, The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. 