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Danny Plaisance can’t stand when the movie ruins the book. He won’t see Cold Mountain for this very reason. After Barbara Streisand spoiled Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides, he’d just about had enough. As owner of independent Cottonwood Books on Perkins Road, Plaisance has spent the last two decades selling out-of-print volumes and first editions the big chains don’t carry. At the top of his shelf is an engraved collection of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer dated 1598.

At home, books on his nightstand lean toward murder mysteries and the Civil War. Here are his favorite reads:

1. Lee: The Last Years by Charles Bracelen Flood

2. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

3. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

4. The Alienist by Caleb Carr

5. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

7. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

8. Rising Tide by John M. Barry

9. Sarah Morgan: The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman

edited by Charles East

10. In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke