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.

[stone-princess.livejournal.com]

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

[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.

[annakovsky.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, dude, I love those books to an embarrassing degree. Like, I own them all IN HARDBACK.

[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.

[destina.livejournal.com]

Bryson's A Walk in the Woods is one of the funniest books ever. I highly recommend it.

[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.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hee, valisme forced that one on me. I was all "but vaaaaal, nature is so boring! I hate hiking! Gah!" But she was persistant, and I ended up thinking it was great.

[monkeypumpkin.livejournal.com]

The Changeover is one of my favorite books of all time, I heartily second this rec.

[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.

[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

[destina.livejournal.com]

That chapter where he talks about Death By Bear makes me giggle even now, thinking about it. *g*

[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.

[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]

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*

[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!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

*peers at you*

Just checking, since I kinda know you through DS and not elsewhere, and you only friended me recent... you do know what commodorified and I write, right?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Kate Ross' four: A Broken Vessel, Whom The Gods Love, Cut to the Quick and The Devil in Music. Wonderful Regency mysteries.