Wednesday, July 8, 2009

I have the need to read

I found some great books to read this summer, but I need more and a friend just put out the word on her blog for book suggestions and I figured, my readers are all smart individuals, I wonder what kind of awesome recommendations I'd get from them. There aren't any parameters, just give me a bit of a description or why you like it, etc so I have a little to go on. Trust me, I'm into a lot of different books. So.

Books for reading. Go.

8 comments:

Marianne Elixir said...

Have you read "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides? Fabulous.

I also LOVED "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

Andrew and I just started reading the Inspector Brown mysteries by GK Chesterton and we like them so far. Speaking of Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday" is a great quick read.

Anonymous said...

I liked Atlas Shrugged & the Fountainhead. Her other stuff was pretty shoddy.

Unfortunately I can't recommend anything else at the moment that isn't fantasy or sci-fi!

Wait..Stephen King's "On Writing" was pretty good/interesting.

As always, my LibraryThing page tracks everything I've read/owned lately:

meg said...

I guess Atlas Shrugged is the winner so far.

Marianne - no I haven't, is it good? Must be, I'll check it out.

AFrench- I love the ender series....so....

Sarah said...

I just read 'Geek Love' by Katherine Dunn, it was extremely weird and wonderful. I also just read the Border Trilogy by McCarthy - it's a classic for a reason - a dark philosophical western type story. Silence by Endo Shusaku was excellent as far as a novel that kind of deals with the difference between religion and faith. It starts slowly but the end wows you. A few of my all time favorites are 'Gilead' by Marilyn Robinson, The Poisonwood Bible (but nothing else that Kingsolver wrote) and anything by David James Duncan. Keep us posted on what you end up with!

IndianaJones said...

well I did sort of already recommend one...that it sounds like you got! hope you like it. I loved Silence too by Endo...and I also thoroughly enjoyed Middlesex (do I have your copy still Marianne?)
I don't love Ayn Rand but will admit it has been years so maybe it's time to give it another go.
I was thinking of two books that are way over recommended and you probably have read as they are all over the freaking place but they both have had a profound affect on my writing so I have to throw them out there...
Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott (also pretty much any and every article she's written is interesting and thoughtful)
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert...yes she was on Oprah...yeah she's probably a little nutty but her journey and the way she processes it in this book was helpful to me.
happy reading!
I echo Sarah...I'd love to see a reading list and maybe a little blurb on what you thought when you finish!

Anonymous said...

The series I gave Andy is the best sci-fi I've read in years...

teal! said...

i second "the man who was thursday"

also "the gift of pain" - super rad, but not for the squeamish, as there are bits about dissecting dead bodies to look at nerves and such like.

um. 'gurnsey literary and sweet potatoe pie society' is actually really great. i totally want to go to the chanel islands now.

i just started reading the ender series - which i think you mentioned - so rad!! i can't believe it took me this long to get into it.

the persepolis graphic novels are great.

also 'two in the far north' and 'ruffles on my longjohns' are both wilderness living sorts of books, which i looooove.

oh, and - anything by dorothy sayers is great, both fiction and non fiction. she writes awesome murder mysteries featuring "lord peter wimsey", and philosophical christian non fiction.

ok. stopping now.

k.w. said...

"Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. At least, I think I can recommend it. Haven't finished it yet.

or

"Dispatches" by Michael Herr...if you really want to be depressed for about a month. It's more like I feel like people SHOULD read it, not necessarily that they'll have fun reading it.

"Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston. A novel/memoir. Pretty writing.

"Miss Lonely-hearts" by Nathanael West, super short and quick. I have this theory that F.Scott Fitzgerald plagiarized it when he wrote "The Great Gatsby"