booooooooooookses.

[schmerica]

Please to rec me books?

I like nonfiction. I like genre fiction of all kinds. I like funny books and quirky books and books with history or language or books or expatriates or food. I like both brand new books and older books. I read a lot and very quickly, but am easily bored (often, but not exclusively, with mainstream literary fiction). I am not well-read in the categories of YA or romance, and both are large enough that I am wary of guessing on goodness on my own.

Behind the cut tag is the list of the books I have read and enjoyed (that is, I'm kicking off the sucky and mediocre books I finished anyway) since December 2004, for context:

The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Snake, The Crocodile and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters
The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard
As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Reexamined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease by Cintra Wilson
Grass as His Pillow by Lian Hearn
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson
Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer by Chauncey Loomis
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray

Comments

[dine.livejournal.com]

you need to check out Bill Bryson's travel books - especially on Britain and Australia. fabulously entertaining and informative books with tons of unusual details we don't often hear about.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

The first Bryson book I ever read was his one on Australia, actually -- I think I still own it somewhere on my bookshelves at home. Unless my dad stole it. It's convinced me that Australia is a scary, scary place completely covered with friendly people and evil animals and plants out to kill me.

[annakovsky.livejournal.com]

I would highly recommend, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and The Princess Diaries books in YA are hilarious and fun to read, if not exactly high literature.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*giggles* Omigod, I swallowed down, like, all of the Princess Diaries books when I was visiting fox1013. The new one is on my amazon.com wishlist RIGHT NOW.

[stone-princess.livejournal.com]

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

[china_shop]

YA: Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones (and many of her others); anything by Margaret Mahy, but especially The Tricksters, The Changeover, and The Catalogue of the Universe.

Grown-up: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

Indeterminate: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I love the Chabon and Haddon books, and everything by Diana Wynne Jones I've read, so I'm going to assume you have truly excellent taste and put your other suggestions on my list.

[darchildre.livejournal.com]

rhinegold by stephen grundy, because i rec it at everyone i meet. it's a retelling of the volsungasaga (basically the same story as wagner's ring cycle, if that helps) and it's long and dense and utterly gorgeous. and tragic, of course, but that's what you get with germanic mythology.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Most mythologies, really, I suppose. I've never heard of this before, and it sounds interesting -- thanks.

[destina.livejournal.com]

The Known World by Edward P. Jones
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner (It's fiction; this is one of my all-time favorite books)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Wicked is very good -- I was disappointed with most of this other ones. I've heard really really good things about Marilynne Robinson, but I haven't gotten around to reading her yet, and the other two are new to me. Thanks!

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Around Ireland with a Fridge.

Freedom and Necessity, Stephen Brust and Emma Bull.

The Corinthian and Black Moth and These Old Shades and Devil's Cub and Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer.

Barbara Hambly's A Free Man of Colour and subsequent.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Reading Freedom & Necessity and (the admittedly incredibly different) Sorcery & Cecelia within a few weeks of each other convinced me that "Napoleonic wars-era historical epistolary fiction" was a *way* underused genre.

*scribbles down other book names*

[monkeypumpkin.livejournal.com]

And a few suggestions of my own:

Summerland, by Michael Chabon

The Tillerman series, by Cynthia Voight

Madeline L'Engle's books for grownup, especially A Severed Wasp

anything by Barbara Kingsolver

anything by Gloria Naylor

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Do you have any specific recs for Kingsolver? I've only read Poisonwood Bible, which I didn't like that much, and that was a good five years ago.

[helleboredoll.livejournal.com]

Longitude by Dava Sobel. Elegant prose, biography, and history lesson all in one. The story of John Harrison, the man who built the first sea-worthy clocks, which were the key to mariners being able to calculate longitude and thus, you know, explore the world and stop crashing their boats up on the coastline after dark and all.

randomly popping over from another friend's list

[andthenbuyfood.livejournal.com]

Kingsolver -- The Bean Trees was pretty good.
Richard Russo -- Empire Falls
Jhumpa Lahiri -- The Namesake

[bibliokat.livejournal.com]

Oh man, books! I LOVE books. Hmmmmm, YA, but Ella Enchanted is an awesome book (I haven't seen the movie, but it's better than that). Dick Francis for mysteries (they all involve horses somehow), Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey for sci-fi/fantasy, Patricia Wrede for YA fantasy, and I've heard Jon Stewart's America textbook is a hilarious take on history. Seriously though, if you like sci-fi/fantasy, let me know, because I have a closet full I can rec from... later. Bedtime now.

Oh, but by the way, I've been a lurker for awhile and now have an LJ of my own, so may I friend you? I adore your Due South fics.

[terpsichoreslyr.livejournal.com]

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Grounding of Group 6 - Julian F. Thompson (my all-time favorite YA book)

Handling Sin - Michael Malone (if you've read and liked A Confederacy of Dunces, you'll like this book - it's got the same feel to it.)

I love all of his Cuddy and Justin detective novels too (First Lady. Uncivil Seasons. Times Witness.) - they are completely different than Handling Sin. I've been very tempted to slash Justin and Cuddy.

The Sweet Potato Queens Book of Love - Jill Connor Browne (very light-weight but cute)

I could keep going and going and going

[fox1013.livejournal.com]

Seconding the Grounding rec.

Like, seconding a LOT. Erica, you have to read it this summer so that I can harass you to write me fic about it.

Er, or just so you can listen to my crazy ramblings about it. One or the other.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

oyceter just put up a set of romance recs (http://www.livejournal.com/~oyceter/284609.html).

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if you dislike science categorically or not, but if not, John McPhee (English literature major, writes about geology, does very fun and beautiful things with language) and Stephen Jay Gould (mushes together evolutionary biology/paleontology, history, literature, and religion into a gorgeous geeky conglomerate) are both excellent. They're both interesting for the science, but notable for their writing -- I'd recommend either of them to anyone who can bear to read about science at all.

Hmm. I just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but you've already read that. You've read Sorcery and Cecelia. I'm sort of drawing a blank here.

[copernica3.livejournal.com]

Confessions of a Pagan Nun, by Kate Horsley. It's about a Celtic healer in the sixth century who takes shelter in a cloister. Pretty and brutal.
The Final Solution, Michael Chabon. Lighter than Kavalier and Clay, vastly less annoying that Wonder Boys, which I harbor an irrational hatred for.
Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite. Unexpectedly fun. Will make you want to cook. Fictional candy.

[copernica3.livejournal.com]

less annoying *than* Wonder Boys. Oy.

[the-emef.livejournal.com]

The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte (http://www.donquijote.org/culture/spain/writers/arturo.asp). Mystery novel. There was a movie, "The Ninth Gate", though most people didn't like it very much. Pretty much my favourite thriller with The Talented Mr. Ripley.

[metamorphogenic.livejournal.com]

Anything by Sheri S. Tepper - nominally scifi, but to me her books read more like fantastic fables. Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Beauty, Singer From The Sea - any of those would be a good place to start. I enjoyed Brown Girl in the Ring, and Midnight Robbers by Nalo Hopkinson, and for non-fiction, I'm in the middle of reading Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History. He also wrote The Basque History of the World and Cod: A Biography of a Fish That Changed The World, both of which are also very interesting and full of surprising tidbits.

[helvirago]

I myself love David Foster Wallace, though he's something of a particular taste. If you haven't read him, I'd recommend trying one of his essay or short story collections, like Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Also, he wrote Everything and More, which is nonfiction and about the mathematical concept of infinity. I liked it a lot.
Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, about Mma Ramotswe, a detective in Botswana.
Milan Kundera's Immortality, which is... um... a Kundera novel.
Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat -- a particularly 19th-century chaps-at-Oxford book, referenced at length in Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog (also highly recommended).
Sherri S. Tepper's Grass, which I found to be fantastic scifi worldbuilding, with a lower-than-usual concentration of her often-overwhelming gender politics.
Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which is big and incorporates WWII and cryptography and modern-day cryptography and developing-world technology issues and van Eck phreaking and... stuff. My one beef with him is that he has a chip on his shoulder about "ivory tower intellectuals" -- but that really makes only one appearance and then it's over.

I know you have more than enough suggestions, but I couldn't not answer this one.

[cranberryink.livejournal.com]

A Reporter's Life (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394578791/qid=1116348331/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-7531933-4738507) by Walter Cronkite is fantastic. It's an autobiography, but also a very sharp look at the last century of American history. Cronkite's humor is self-depricating and dry and makes for a wonderful read.

Also, I'm sure you've read Sophie's World (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425152251/qid=1116348533/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/102-7531933-4738507) by Jostein Gaarder, yes? If not, you totally should. A nice review of the history of Western philosophy.

[elbomac.livejournal.com]

Random Family - Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. A reporter hung out with a family in the Bronx for about ten years and tells their story. So well-done, and fascinating.

The Working Poor - by David Shipler. I think everyone should read this book.

Have you read any Roddy Doyle? Everything he writes is great, but Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and the Barrytown triology are especially awesome.

I myself just spent about $80 at the Strand on vacation books!

[ladyclio16.livejournal.com]

The Archangel Trilogy/Samaria Novels by Sharon Shinn

Archangel Trilogy
Archangel
Jovah's Angel
the Alleluia Files

These are the first three original books in this fantasy/sci-fi series. There is some pretty good world building in these novels. The first three books in the series track the people of Samaria through several generations. The world the characters live in is heavily steeped in religion, but nothing is really as it seems to be. The books in the original trilogy each take place about hundred years or more apart from one another. As the people evolve mentally and technologically over several hundred years truths about their existence, their religion, and their "god" are slowly revealed to them. I really liked how she took time letting the truth of what is really going on unfold slowly. Allowing the people of Samaria time to uncover the truth about their lives as they grow ready.

The characters in her books can annoy me sometimes. There are always mismatched lovers in her books. Opposites attract is a running theme. She writes some of the characters as quite self-centered in the beginning of their tales, but they always "grow out of it" as the story evolves and their situation changes. They do learn from their experiences, grow, and change which is a big plus. They don't stay stubbornly unchanged through their hardships. Lots of spunky, strong female characters. Many of her main characters are very strong-willed females. Each one unique, but interesting in her own way. While some of the characters annoy me I really like most of them. They are entertaining and the world she's created is a really fun one to read. Oh, on this world angels exist. It's explained along with everything else eventually.

Samaria Novels
Angelica
Angel-Seeker

These are novels that take place in the same universe as the Archangel trilogy. They are really expansions on the original series. Angelica I read a while ago and don't remember too well, honestly. I do remember liking it as well as all the others, but I can't recall any details right now. I'm going to have to re-read it. I'm reading Angel-Seeker right now. It takes place a couple of years after Archangel, but focuses on different characters. We see some of the ones from the first novel returning, but they are present in a more periphera sense this time. She's actually focusing more on a group of people she has mentioned in all the other novels, but we haven't learned much about up until now. So it's pretty interesting seeing this world from a different point of view.

One thing I like about the characters in each book is they are all different people. With different strengths and weaknesses. We don't see repeats of the same people over and over. While the characters in the first four novels are in similar situations they all approach them differently. I'm glad to see she's moved away from the tired old scenario she used in the first four novels in Angel-seeker. It adds more interest.

Like I said the only negative to me is her characters can be annoying in their selfishness at times, but they usually get over it. Not all of them are like that, don't get that impression. Most I just fall in love with from the start and can't wait to see where she takes them. I'm really loving several of the main characters in Angel-seeker right now and can't wait to finish it.

So there are my book recs for you. They shouldn't be that hard to find. I've been able to find all of them in my local book stores. I'm sure you should be able to find them on amazon.com, although I haven't checked.

[in-stead.livejournal.com]

I think that I am constitutionally incapable of passing by a book rec request. Like most avid readers, I want so desperately to share my discovery when I stumble over books that I love, yet most people on an average day will have none of it.

So.

First off, I want to second whoever it was that recommended The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400032717/qid=1116430522/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-0449743-7327117). It really is a fantastic book.

On a non-fiction front, I have to point you at The Mummy Congress by Heather Pringle (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002NKE2E/qid=1116430476/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-0449743-7327117?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). Mostly because I've been trying to make everyone I know read this book since the day I finished it. I actually read the last page, closed the book, and handed it over to my father, who was at that time sitting next to me on a plane. It's really well written and, if you are at all fond of popular science type stuff or have ever been interested in mummies or the cross-cultural expression of the human desire for immortality or belief in life after death, you cannot give this book a pass.

I refuse to even start in on recommending history books, as I am a history major in the middle of writing my Master's thesis, and that could so quickly get out of hand. *g*

As for non-fiction, I have to admit, because I've been writing my Master's thesis lately, I haven't read an intellectually rewarding book for fun in months. As such, I feel utterly confident in my ability to recommend books for light, fun reading, and not at all equipped to address anything of a more worthy nature.

I've been reading romances at a terrific pace, because they really are the definition of light and fun reading. Also, they have a lot in common with slash, aside from the het angle. A lot of the genre tropes are the same, which isn't really a surprise, I think, because so many slash fics are stories about a romantic connection between two characters.

If you're in the mood to give the romance genre a try, I'd recommend anything by Linda Howard (who has lately been writing romantic thrillers and who writes fantastic, filthy, sweaty, sex scenes), Jo Beverly (who writes beautiful, accurate, plotty historical romances and has brilliantly diverse characters), and Judith McNaught (fantastic, wonderful, on-the-verge-but-not-quite overblown angst -- both in her historical and in her contemporary stories).

Also, I recently read one book that I loved and which contains a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek brush with fandom. Return Engagement by Lynn Michaels (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0804119619/qid=1116431935/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/104-0449743-7327117?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) is about Noah Patrick and Lindsay West who, when they were teens, were the stars of an immensely popular teen soap that sounds rather like The O.C. Fifteen years down the line, Lindsay has been living a quiet life back in her home town with her teenaged son and Noah has hit bottom with bone crunching force, bounced, hit bottom again, and, while he was down, suffered a few brutal kicks in the ribs besides. In short, he's a little desparate. Some outside machinations later, and the two are starring in a play, billed as the big reunion of the old teen stars. The fandom angle kicks in late in the book, when all of the old fans of the show -- who have been dutifully maintaining websites, buying each season on DVD, having debates about whether the fact that Noah's character switched from a red surfboard to a blue one in one episode was actually a shout-out of his secret love for Lindsay, and, I have no doubt, writing fic! -- catch wind of the reunion. Tons of fun. I read some of Lynn Michaels other books, which are okay, but this is absolutely my favourite.

And, uh, I have other books -- why, I haven't even touched on sci-fi/fantasy or Y.A. lit yet! -- but I just realised how long this reply has become, so I think I'll leave it at that.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Long replies = JOY, in this case. This comment rocked; thank you so much!

[daemonluna.livejournal.com]

(Delurking...) If you liked Princess Diaries and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, for something a little bit heavier (but not into the dear-god-ANGST-ANGST-ANGST teen problem novel territory), try anything by Joan Bauer (especially Rules of the Road, and Hope Was Here).

Sarah Dessen's good too. The Truth About Forever is her latest, about a girl who's done verything the safe way since her dad dies, and then ends up with a summer job for this incredibly chaotic catering company.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is also really good--the main character is just starting high school, but no-one is talking to her because she called the cops at a party last summer, and a lot of people got in trouble. What they don't know is why she called the police, and why she stops talking entirely over the school year. The sarcasm and cynicism in her inner voice balances out the trauma nicely.

Make Lemonade and the sequel, True Believer, by Virginia Wolff Euwer, are very cool novels in prose poetry. Anything by Paul Fleischman is also great--Seedfolk is another prose poem one, about a run-down neighbourhood and a community garden.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan is the best GLBT teen book EVER.

Lest this turn into giant comment-spam... I tend to read a lot of YA books, and anything I've read lately and blurbed in my lj is in my memories (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=daemonluna) under "ya book recs" (amazingly complicated system, I know *g*)