So I drone on and on and on about the books I've loved, and I want to hear from YOU GUYS. So hit me with your random recs and I'll post them each Monday night.
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The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (plus all the other books in his Thursday Next series), As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer, A Discovery of Witchez by Deborah Harkness, The Crestomanci Chronicles by Diana Wynne Jones , A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald, The Frog Princess series by ED Baker, the Bibliophile Mysteries by Kate Carlisle, the Camulod Chronicles by Jack Whyte, Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear, the Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, the Flavia deLuce series by Alan Bradley, Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, the Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper...okay, I'll stop now!
ReplyDeleteDivison Street by Helen Mort.
ReplyDeleteLike Kate I recommend Jasper Fforde. Apart from his Thursday Next series, please read Shades of Grey. Yes, just Shades, minus the 50. It’s about a color-based meritocracy.
ReplyDelete"I Served the King of England" by Bohumil Hrabal (trans. Paul Wilson). A wonderful, sad, wistful, comic, sweet novel about a busboy in a Prague hotel in the middle of the 20th century. Hrabal is incredible, and this is one of the best introductions to his work I can think of. This novel captures an acceptance of the sadness and tragedy underlying life (especially during the darkness of the last century), yet treats that sadness with a softly comic sensibility. Hrabal is high on my list of writers whom I wish I had had the privilege to know.
ReplyDeleteI always have a hard time picking absolute favorites, but there are a few that have stuck with me. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay (I'm sure you've heard enough of about it from Rebecca ha), Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Achidie, The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys, these are great!
ReplyDeleteAmerican Pastoral by Philip Roth. I'm reading it for the umpteenth time right now. It strikes me as a modern version of Job.
ReplyDeleteMy twitter handle is Cosmic Ray-Z@CosmodemonicPMC
The Book that most wowed me recently is THE DOG STARS by Peter Heller. It's so beautiful. His second book, THE PAINTER, us also incredible but THE DOG STARS is just really special. And if you like it pick up STATION ELEVEN in September. Find more recommendations on my blog bookarista.com
ReplyDeleteConsider The Oyster by MFK Fisher. I'd somehow managed to miss this little classic before this year. It's wonderful and extremely well-written. - Summer Brennan, @summerbrennan, www.summer-brennan.com
ReplyDeleteA bit late, but I've found so few people who have read Garth Nix's Shade's Children. It's a dark SF story, in the same vein as Ender's Game, but set in a world where no one is interested in---or capable of---preserving the juvenile characters' innocent delusions.
ReplyDeleteKristian Wilson
@kristianwriting
FB: kristianwilsonwriting
kristianwilsonwriting.wordpress.com
The Surrendered by Chang Rae Lee. The novel is beautifully written but the story and the characters could have used more work. Still, it's one of my favorite books because it contains of the most honest moments I've ever read in a novel.
ReplyDeleteEH Kern
@EH_Kern
The Boomerang: ehkern.wordpress.com
Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series: The Thief, The Queen of Attolia (my fav), and The King of Attolia. Classical Greece setting,with spurts of modernity,engaging characters,..very good!
ReplyDeleteKarl Ove Knausgaard's A Time for Everything. There has been a lot of hype about Knausgaard and his My Struggle series lately, but A Time for Everything shows that he can tell great stories about other things besides his family (although this book does have scenes that will be familiar to My Struggle readers). The book consists of his retelling of Bible stories in order to show how the presence of angels has diminished over time. It's a dense but beautiful read; not only are his re-tellings fascinating, but the text is filled with picturesque landscapes captured with Proustian detail.
ReplyDeleteChris Iacono
@ciacono1973
goodcoffeebookblog.tumblr.com
The Yanks are Starving by Glen Craney. Indie published and well worth the readhttp://wp.me/p2iD4p-ih
ReplyDeleteI recently finished Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, and it was crazy incredible. It's a Chinese adventure story, with sages and con artists and ghosts and dragons and women who are worshipped and stone filled caves that sound like bells and holy paintings, and a heavenly court who isn't allowed to intervene in human affairs. Also? written so beautifully. I cried like three times at the end.
ReplyDeletetwitter: @redhead5318
website: www.littleredreviewer.wordpress.com
psmith in the city. I am reading this at the moment :)
ReplyDeleteThree favourites of stuff I've read recently are Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Flower, The Doomsday Book (and the rest of the Oxford Time Travel series) by Connie Willis and Slow River by Nicola Griffiths. They're all great writers and I loved the books because of the characters, how they grew and developed and surprised me on their journeys.
ReplyDeleteNon fiction - I loved How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. So funny, so honest, so real.
twitter: @tales_and_tea
blog: http://tales-and-tea.tumblr.com/