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Love to read? Want to know what someone who really loves to read reads? Marquette Magazine asked English Department chair Dr. Kris Ratcliffe to list five of her favorite literary classics. Although she said “it’s kind of like choosing your favorite child,” she not only gave us titles, she also told us why we should take a look. Think of this as seeds of thought for a great summer reading list.

1. Beloved by Tony Morrison: "It artfully couples lyric and realism, imagines what's missing in the historical record, offers a fierce love ethic to live by and moves me immensely every time I read it."

2. The Tempest by William Shakespeare: "I saw a fabulously haunting production of this play in Stratford, Ontario, when I was a college student, and it has always stayed with me ever since."

3. Paradise Lost by John Milton: "Great story, great characters, great poetry. My favorite class as an undergraduate."

4. Tracks by Louise Erdrich: "Its structure reflects communal voices, superbly capturing Anishinaabe culture at a particular time and place."

5. Persuasion by Jane Austen: "Although I read Pride and Prejudice when I need a good laugh, Persuasion is to my mind Austen's best novel because its protagonist Anne Elliot is both self- and socially-aware, and very adept at describing both; long before Virginia Woolf penned A Room of One's Own, Anne notes problems with poetic representations of women in the poetry written by men."

Check out these other Marquette Reads:

• Terri Mitchell

• Phillip Naylor