Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book Challenge

You knew I'd start racking up challenges for 2012 as soon as I put up the Challenge Addict post, didn't you? Well, you were right. Here I am signing up for my very first challenge for next year. A couple of months ago Gina at Book Dragon's Lair solicited our top five comfort reads--books that we love and could read over and over again. She gathered all those together to make up the Getting Lost in a Comfortable Book Challenge.

The rules are simple:
*Go to her site (click link above).
*Select five books from the list that you've never read before.
*Read them.
*If you like, post reviews about them. But if not, she'd like to hear about why you chose the books you did.

Here are my picks:
1. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (7/18/12)
2. Venetia by Georgette Heyer (4/7/12)
3. The Cat Who Saw Red by Lilian Jackson Braun (5/22/12)
4. The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman (5/24/12)
5. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (5/4/12)

I plan to review and will post links here as I do. But, in short, here's what influenced my choices: the Gaskell book has been on my long TBR list for quite a while. I love Georgette Heyer's books (both Regency romance and mysteries) and Venetia is one I haven't gotten to yet. The Spy Wore Red takes place during WWII, one of my favorite periods. [Update: had to change to a Lilian Jackson Braun book.  I could have sworn that The Spy Wore Red was available at my library when I made this list.  It is no longer.] The Lipman book just sounded good when I read the synopsis. And Anne of Green Gables is one of those books that it seems like everyone in the world has read but me--I'm going to change that.