Sarah, seeing all those favorite titles again was a lovely experience for me, too. That might be one of the nicest thing about growing older, is how many more great and profound reads we can enjoy remembering. 🙂

Personally, I always love deep, or omniscient third, but for some things, first person is great, too. Since my current genre is cozy mystery, I can say I enjoy reading them no matter what the POV, but generally, they seem to be fairly well split between first person (of the amateur sleuth) and either omniscient third or limited third, at least the latter is what I think you call it.

I have a contemporary romance started in third, but I've been toying with the idea of seeing what it "sounds" like in first person. As it stands now, it's in rotating third between the two protagonists/eventual couple, where each chapter is in a different POV. I love that style, as it allows you to either write - or read - deep inside each main character's head. But they're all centered around the same events in the book, so the reader builds a piece-by-piece picture of the story. But then, I love having more than one protagonist, too, with a limit of three.

Favorite books and their POVs:

"To Kill a Mockingbird", by Harper Lee (first person)
"The Once and Future King", by T. H. White (King Arthur/Merlin fantasy, omniscient third person)
"The Cat, the Sneak, and the Secret", by Leann Sweeney (cozy mystery, first person)
"Hawaii" or "Centennial", by James Michener (historical fiction, omniscient third person)
"Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austen (historical romance, limited omniscient)
"Ben-Hur", by Lew Wallace (historical fiction, I think in omniscient third if I remember)
"Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance", by Herman Wouk (historical fiction, omniscient third)

I know, I cheated with more than three. But since I'm late on the comment, and don't qualify for the contest, I couldn't help myself. Just too many books of value out there. But each of the above affected me profoundly at different times in my life. You will note a preference for third person, in general, and that many times I opt for long, multi-generational novels.

You can tell this article inspired me to remember books which, for me, were profound. A writer knows that the POV of a book makes a huge difference in how it affects the reader, and when I read, I am no exception!

Elaine, it's always such fun coming across another Mary Stewart fan -- aren't those books amazing? I remember picking up a Mary Renault thinking she was Mary Stewart (you can tell what a very small selection of books were on that shelf) and being disappointed I'd gotten the wrong author, but now I'm thinking I should find Bull from the Sea!

Laura, it's a surprising book...I'd always thought I didn't much care for John Irving until my brother said this was the best book he'd ever read, and since the only one he'd ever said that about before was Jack Finney's Time and Again I figured he might be onto something. About 15% of the way in I felt dubious and skipped to 40% at which point I got engrossed and went back to 15, so don't worry about hopping around if that makes the read better. Later on, straight through was equally good!

Natalie, I'm sorry I missed this yesterday! And I'm impressed that you spotted those few glitches in the Harry Potter books; I couldn't have told you about a single one but now that you mention 'em it's a big "oh, gosh, that's right." Or, er, wrong. Although it's hard to ever say ANYTHING about that series is wrong. 🙂

Maggie, you're the first person who's mentioned THREE writers I've never heard of -- talk about a great expansion of boundaries! I especially like your description of what makes each one so good...thanks to you, there are now three new names on my TBR list.

LeAnne, it's been interesting to see how many other readers say first-person just doesn't do it for them. I don't know if that's connected to being writers as well, or if non-writing readers feel the same way...but you're sure not alone. Good thing there are plenty of third-person books out there, huh? 🙂