I recently asked for book recommendations on Twitter. Here’s a list of what came through. Of course, who knows what literary taste each of these books reflects, but I’m enjoying the adventure of finding out. If you are looking for a summer read, one of these might suit your fancy — but read at your own risk. I don’t know anything about these books.
• 19 Minutes by Jody Picoult (several people recommended this, but warned that it’s “heavy”)
• Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
• The Birth House by Sideshow Ami
• Charlotte Collins by Jennifer Becton (“if you like Jane Austen”)
• Christmas Jars
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (“anything” by him)
• The Giving Tree (ha! a kid’s book)
• The Great Night by Chris Adrian
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• Mistress of the Art of Death (looks like this is a series)
• Modoc (this is about an elephant!?)
• The Red Tent (several people recommended this one)
• Remarkable Creatures
• Sarah’s Key
• The Tailor’s Daughter
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
And I’ll add Bossypants by Tina Fey to the list. I’m curious to see what that one is about. Has anyone read it?
Several of these titles were not available at the library yesterday with multiple holds placed on each of the copies — a good sign. The three I ended up taking home for Round 1 were: Back When We Were Grownups, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Corrections (by Jonathan Franzen).
Thanks to everyone who sent their picks. I have to read at night to fall asleep, otherwise, my mind invents all sorts of excuses to stay up! If you have a suggestion or two to add, please share it. Maybe tell us a little about it. Twitter does’t afford space for much explanation, does it? Here you can cast more than 140 characters in the role.
Oh I love 19 minutes by Jodi Picoult, My daughter recently grabbed my collection of her books and has read it twice. I hope you put it on the hold list. 🙂
The Guernsey Literary Society is some kind of lovely, quirky wonderful. Enjoy!
The Help! It’s a must read if you haven’t read it already. It was made into a movie, but it wouldn’t be right to watch it if you haven’t read the book.
This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection, by Carol Burnett
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
I love reading! Thanks for sharing your list!!
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer is quite good, as is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay.
If you haven’t read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, I LOVED it!
I’m in the middle of _Bossypants_ right now. It’s mostly a reflection on different episodes or moments of Tina Fey’s life. I rarely actually laugh out loud when I’m reading, but I giggle about 10 times per page. It’s so great!
I recommend the Maisie Dobbs novel. Wonderful stories!
Bossypants is great! It is Tina Fey’s (of SNL and 30 Rock fame) biography. It’s funny, silly, and a bit irreverent. She talks about growing up as a nerd, her days in Chicago doing improv with Second City, how she became a writer and then the news anchor for Saturday Night Live, how the whole Sarah Palin impression came about and being the boss of a bunch of people at 30 Rock. If you like Tina Fey’s humor, you will love the book.
The Help was wonderful! I passed it around my knitting circle and everybody read it in like 2 days. Two of my favorite books are Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Also YA books are great- short and well written.
I loved The Help as well. Hurry and read it before the movie comes out in August. 🙂
I read BossyPants and LOVED it! Tina Fey is such a riot! I also have to recommend A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness–I literally couldn’t read it fast enough. I’m a librarian, and “Witches” has become our most staff recommended book–ever!
Thanks for the list – I think I´ll look for 19 minutes first! 🙂
I love anything by Jody Picoult. Her writing is very thought provoking. There are many on your list I’ll have to pick up.
I’ll add my hat to the Help recommendations, such a good book!!
Of your list I have only read the Anne Tyler book (it was years ago, can’t remember if I liked it or not) and the Time Travelers wife (the book is WAY raunchy…lots of foul language, just an FYI)
I just finished the Postmistress by Sarah Blake (the chandler library has it). The story parallels two women’s lives through about a year an a half span right before the US gets involved in WW2.
If you are interested in some light, entertaining period reading, the Lady Emily books by Tasha Alexander are fun and captivating!
Many of my favs are already on the list, but I have to add- These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine by Nancy E. Turner…
Such a great book. It’s truly strange and wonderful all in one. And seeing how you are an entrepreneurial gal yourself, you’ll appreciate the main character very much.
Thanks for the raunchiness warning, Heather from AZ 🙂 That will help some folks out for sure.
Currently reading Bossypants right now. It is hilarious and irreverent – Tina Fey has got to be one of the funniest people on the planet. It reads like a conversation between friends. Love it.
I’m going to read 19 minutes as well 🙂
Now that I have seen your list, I’ve added The Giving Tree, The Birth House, The Red Tent and Back When We Were Grownups 🙂
If I could recommend a book, it would be Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland 😉
Sarah’s Key is so sad, but I was glad to learn about that part of history.
I’d also recommend The Help, along with Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia (has two sequels), These Is My Words, One Thousand White Women, Outlander series (my faves!!), Midwives…okay I’ll stop now.
Just a quick note in support of Charlotte Collins by Jennifer Becton, which is my new favorite book (although the author has two new books coming out this summer, so that could change!) it’s a super steal as an ebook 😉
I also have to recommend anything by Robin McKinley, cause she is great!
Love Guernsey and Bossypants!! Both fabulous! Bossypants is an autobiography, but not a typical autobiography. So so funny, though!
I agree with the kudos for The Help, and yes Sarah’s Key WAS really sad but an very good book,( but not necessarily to read before you go to sleep!) One I would HIGHLY recommend is One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. Not a book I would generally pick up, but my book club read it,and I was instantly hooked.It was one of my favorites in the past few years. I’ve been passing it around my quilt group, and everyone loves it.
Bossypants = LOL
I like Tina Fey.
Thank you for including Charlotte Collins on your list! I hope you enjoy it.
Jennifer Becton
I don’t really think too much of the Jody Picoult books, I’ve read a few and find them very samey.
I just finished reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It’s about a futuristic northern America where the country is split into districts and the capitol. Each year each of the 12 districts have to give up two of their children to enter an arena where they have to fight to the death and only the last one standing survives. Sounds really gruesome doesn’t it? But it’s not to so gruesome it’s actually really touching and sweet and very VERY sad (I cried on more than one occasion). I’m pretty much reccomending this book to EVERYONE because it became a new favourite of mine within a couple of chapters. It’s THAT good!
xoxo
I prefer escape when reading, so here’s a few of my favs.
There’s a new Janet Evanonvich ‘Stephanie Plum Series’ coming out. If you haven’t read them and want a laugh out loud book, start with ‘One For the Money’. Steph is a bounty hunter, but a bumbeling one. And there’s not one, but two hotties.
For a more gentle read, I love the Alexander McCall Smith’s ’44 Scotland Street’ series. It follows the intertwined lives of several people on a street in Edinburgh and the quirky things they do.
And in the just fun genre, I love the Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series by Julie Kenner. It’s described as what happens when Buffy settles down and becomes a stay at home mom. Really fun, summer escape reading. Talk about a mom trying to do it all! The first book is ‘Carpe Demon’.
I recently finished 19 Minutes and I loved it. It is heavy but so good, moving. I do not recommend The Red Tent although many thought it was good I didn’t enjoy it.
I agree with a couple posts above. The Invisible Bridge is just spectacular. It came out last year, received rave reviews. I started reading it a couple days ago and can’t put it down. Stunning work.
I also have been trying to read The Help, but it’s always checked out of the library. Apparently I need to buy it! 🙂
I loved Guernsey, it was great. I also recommend The Red Tent, it was fascinating to me. The Help is also one I couldn’t put down at all. I hear they are making a movie out of it too. The Hunger Games series was a fun read, and went pretty quickly. If you want something deep and thoughtful read East of Eden by John Steinbeck, I found myself rereading a lot of it because I couldn’t get enough of his writing, he’s so good! If you want something fun and upbeat I recommend the author Jennifer Weiner, I LOVE her books, she is one of my favorites for something entertaining. Now you got me thinking about books again, thanks for that 🙂
You MUST move the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to the TOP of the list. It’s a dream book and I hope to read it at the start of every summer forever (seriously). You will NOT regret it!
I’m excited to add many of these to my hold list at the library. I do have to agree with “Vicki” above, about the Stephanie Plum series from Janet Evanovich. I started these a couple months ago and am totally hooked (I just finished book 6 and am awaiting my email from the library for number 7). I’m actually cheating a bit and am listening to the audio books while I’m entering data at work (shhh…). The woman that is the narrator for all of the books that I’ve “read” so far is great with the voices (C.J. Critt), so if you can do Audio Books, I highly recommend. (At least listen to one and then you can keep her voices in your head as you read the others). 🙂
P.S. There is some language in these books, but if you don’t mind, they’re quite funny.
I second Jen’s comment about Guernsey!
1. Best book I’ve read—ever!! The Photograph by Virginia Ellis. At the end, you want to turn the book upside down and shake it, just to see if you can make any more story fall out. Did not want it to end!!
2. Anything by Lisa Wingate. She has a 3 book series of funny, clean romance stories, but most of her stuff is more serious. I loved her Tending Roses series.
3. Anything by Dorothea Benton Frank. Most take place around Charleston SC.
4. Deep in the Valley by Robyn Carr
5 and 6. Prayers for Sale and Whiter Than Snow by Sandra Dallas
I just finished “ROOM”…a very good book written from a 5 year old boys view. He and his mom live in an 11 ft x 11 ft room. The mom was kidnapped and the boy was born in the room and knows nothing else. VERY GOOD!!
I also just finished Elin Hilderbrands “Summer People”…or anything else by her..
I also just finished ROOM and found it really good, and I looooooved the Time Travelers Wife – can’t remember it being as raunchy as heather from arizona said…. Maybe I’m too attuned to foul language, lol!
I agree with a lot of the other commenters. The Help is an outstanding read! Add it to the list!!
Most all my favorite books have already been mentioned but two I have read this summer and so outstanding and compelling. They are “Trudy’s Promise” and “The Book Thief”. They have made my early summer so good. I could recommend books forever so e-mail me if you ever run out of good reads.
Happy reading!
gbundy@windstream.net
The Forgotten Garden and Molokai are also GREAT books. I’ve heard that Unbroken is supposed to be amazing, just haven’t gotten to that one yet!
The Birth House is a terrific book and it’s based near where I grew up! You’ll love it!
Just finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Seabiscuit, which I didn’t finish) and it was an amazing read. I couldn’t believe I had never heard Louis Zamperini’s story before; it is compelling reading.
Read Sarah’s Key (or see the movie) with a strong heart. It’s not for the feint hearted.
Hello! I’ve just hopped over from Kirsty Wiseman’s blog via The Cheshire Design House.
I’d thoroughly recommend The Help. It was one of those books where you miss the characters as soon as you’ve finished reading it. Loved it and it’s been passed around our running club. Would read again which is not something I’d normally do! Also, I enjoyed The House at Riverton – (a similar setting to tv series Downton Abbey).
Have just finished Room (recommended by my daughter)-very good! And she told me I would also enjoy The Book Thief so have just got it from the library but haven’t started it yet.
Guernsey is lovely quick read, full of lots of characters that you would love to get a chatty letter from – also in letter format is the Last Days of Summer (by Kluger). I didn’t read Unbroken, but I have read Devil at my Heels, which is the autobiography of Louis Zamperini – he certainly had more thrown at him than anyone should in life.
I’ve been on a classics kick, lately, catching up on ones I missed in high School. North and South by Gaskell and Jane Eyre by Bronte were easy entertaining reads. Non-classics: The Matthew Shardlake series by Sansom are interesting mysteries set in Tudor times. Out of Africa (Blixen) is poetic, The Power of One (Courtenay) epic. The History of Love (Krauss) is another that I’ve enjoyed.
The Red Tent was excellent when I read it 5 years ago. I just finished The Glass Castle and the follow-up, Half-Broke Horses. Loved.
If someone is recommending Sandra Dallas
Then consider the reader!:-)
The Persian Pickle Club is the best of hers!!
Persian pickle is the name of a fabric
In the book- quilt anyone???
A Vintage Affair by Isobel Wolff
The Dressmaker by Elizabeth Oberbeck
And Meg Cabot’s Queen of Babble Series
About Art Fashion History/Designer Lizzie!!
Also loved Charlotte Collinsand downloaded
Maria Lucas by Jennifer Becton onto my
Kindle. Stephanie Plum is a great character.
She always wanted to be a superhero also
Sara Donati, Diana Gabaldon have great series
Of wonderful intelligent fiction then a new
Series I also loved by Deborah Harkness,
With the first book, a Discovery of Witches
Published this year-could not put that one down!
( this is not about evil witches by the way and
NEVer thought I would read a book with a
Vampire in it!!
Just a note about Bossypants, I’d recommend getting the audiobook. I read the book and laughed a lot, but then I listened to the audiobook and positively guffawed. It’s one of those works that benefits from being heard in the author’s voice, like stuff by David Sedaris and David Rakoff.
If you’re not too overloaded with suggestions, I’ve got to throw in The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I could not put it down, then I re-read it a few times, and then I bought a second copy so I’d have one for lending and one to keep.
It’s about a group of friends at a New England college. They decide they must murder one of the group (you find this out on the first page) and the book is about what led them to this point and what effect the murder has on them. Brilliant, amazing book. I think I’ll go re-read it again.
I also agree with the Help.
I am reading the Sookie Stackhouse series now.
Really enjoying it!
Thanks for the list. I needed a new book! I have to put in another vote for Hunger Games!! Run, don’t walk to buy the series! I’ve read the Red Tent, Guernsey, Time Travelers Wife,and Sarah’s Key. All were good. Sarah’s Key and The Red Tent are a little heavier reading for Summer time.
Above all else, you will get the most knowledge and enjoyment out of the Cider House Rules by John Irving, It will spread your wings in a direction you never thought they might go. In 1999 it was made into a movie with Charlize Theron and Tobey Maquire. Someday this book will hopefully end up on your nightstand because it changed my life, with 5 simple words my life took on a whole new meaning.
I have really enjoyed reading the recommendations in the post and the comments! I absolutely loved Guernsey, the Help and These Is My Words. I am just finishing Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and it is wonderful – highly recommended. I recently read and loved Nobody Don’t Love Nobody by Stacy Bess – amazing. Also very noteworthy are June Bug by Chris Fabry, and The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba.
Your photos are always so killer- pretty and bright and lovely to see. Congrats on the newest member of the fam!
Oh! You have to read the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon…fantastic books! Outlander is the first. I also just read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers and loved that one too. Don’t know if you have heard of Goodreads (www.goodreads.com). It’s a really great site to catalog books you have read and just read reviews of other people. Happy reading!
I’m sharing my favorite book of fairy tales with you- Eleanor Farjeon’s A Little Bookroom. Charming and perfectly suitable for a 5 minute pick up and put down read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Bookroom
I think you would love the imagery in ‘The Lady’s Room,’ (http://www.eldrbarry.net/rabb/farj/ladyroom.htm) after all, who wouldn’t want a carpet like moss in the woods or a carpet like rose petals? Please do let me know if you get this storybook how you liked it!
I have a few books I’ve passed on to friends with success.
Apologize Apologize is about a dysfunctional, wealthy family from Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. It’s a first time novel and very cleverly written. It’s compared to Catcher in the Rye. Many twists in the plot. You really ponder your own human nature and just what you will withstand.
Then there is Chris Cleave Little Bee which is fantastic and is about a refugee that escapes and makes a difference in a family’s life at a very tragic time.
Of coarse all of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Series – Fantastic!
Still Alice is a book about a Harvard Professor who has early onset Alzheimer Disease. The story takes you through her struggle and how she still tries to cope while the disease progresses. It is an amazing book and a big help if you know anyone who may be affected with the disease.
I have many more, these are just more dramatic so they register at the front of my memory.
i just finished the hunger games series and LOVED it! i couldn’t put it down. i also love time traveler’s wife. it was such a sweet story, but she’s a little crass. just a heads up. i also read the undaunted, the story of the hole in the rock pioneers and couldn’t seem to put that one down either..
I second “The History Of Love” by Nicole Krauss. My All time FAVORITE book, so moving and so satisfying, it is everything a good novel should be.
Thanks for opening up this discussion! You’ve gotten such a great response. I’m excited to read a lot of these suggestions! I’d read the Help first. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time.
A few suggestions not mentioned yet: Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons (good if you like the Help or Secret Life of Bees, with strong Southern women); Listening is an Act of Love by Dave Isay (a collection of interviews from 9/11 survivors, cancer patients, average Joes, etc.– helps you realize everyone has a story); Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (a young adult book and gorgeously written, a fast read); I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (a coming-of-age story; it took about 40 pages for me to get into it but then I couldn’t put it down); Scarlet Pimpernel (if you’re looking for a classic).
Bossy Pants is hilarious, my daughter and I actually read passages out loud to each other as we read it. My husband didn’t always get the humor tho… If you like Tina Fey then this is a good book. . . If you don’t like here, well then, I just don’t know.
I have read the Red Tent – it was excellent! I also recommend Water for Elephants – I could not put it down and read it in a day!!! I am currently reading The Weird Sisters which I am thoroughly enjoying 🙂
Kathleen Scanlon-Desio
http://longislandchick.com
Love to get new book recommendations!
I just finished reading Pope Joan. It’s a controversial piece of history (or maybe not according to some people) of a woman who plays a man to end up as Pope. It was fantastic.
I’ve also heard ROOM is really good. The Help is fabulous, as is Sarah’s Key (like others said, so sad).
These Is My Words is good if you don’t mind reading in a journal format. I didn’t care for it at first, but ended up loving it. One Thousand White Women is the same format, and also very good.
The Outlander series are some of my favorite books of all time! There are seven or eight of them; I couldn’t put them down!
Happy Reading!
Wonderful selection. Definitely need to add this to my GoodReads, Shelfari and LibraryThing lists! LOL. Do you use any of those? Great way to keep track of what you want to read and what you’ve already read. I used to just keep a notebook but that got old fast! Wish one they were integrated with booksellers and libraries though! That would be awesome! (that went random, eh?)
I LOVE to read!!! I am actually reading 19 Minutes by Jody Picoult right now. I have read The Giving Tree and saw the movie The Time Traveler’s Wife. In the picture you have posted, I’ve read all of those. 🙂