Have you read any good books lately?
I’m seeking suggestions. I’m not looking for tech books (although, if you can recommend an amazingly kick-ass JavaScript book, I’d appreciate it). I’m looking for good stories with lyrical prose that leaves you in a mood once you close the back cover.
Genre-wise, I’m open to anything but science fiction. I will make an exception, though, if the writing is good.
So: got any suggestions?
Yes ! The first ones which come to mind:
“If nobody speaks of remarkable things” by Jon McGregor
Left me very delighted and looking at the world with new and fresh eyes for a while
Anything by Ben Elton for some perspective on the world around us and a smile
I’ve just started reading the Book of Dave by Will Self.
It is about London of the future which is now mostly underwater and has a culture based on the Book of Dave, a book written by a London Cab Driver 500 years previous to his estranged son. The writing is excellent, especially the dialog which includes a language based on text speak and mockney.
“Love is a Mix Tape” by Rob Sheffield. It’s a quick read but once you start it you cannot put it down.
I’m really enjoying “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss. It’s about the comma and punctuation. It sounds boring but I really like her writing style.
Do you like Carl Hiassen? I love all his books. His new one is “Native Girl”. Eco-mystery.
I’m trying to read more adult fiction but I have to stick with Young Adult fiction during the school year. “Rules of Survival” is very intense. It’s by Nancy Werlin. Child abuse and surviving it.
Did you want light reading? only adult? sorry, my librarian-self is coming out! AUGH!
@Anna: I liked “Hoot” a lot. “Native Girl” might just join that list.
Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicles (kept me spellbound after the first 50-75 pages and made it very hard for me to start a new book for a while)
Olivia Butler’s Kindred is a book I read recently and fell in love with. It’s like science fiction, without the science. She writes about race, sexism, gender, class, and politics with such a broad stroke that it doesn’t interefere with the main storyline. And I hated science fiction before reading this book. Now I’m hooked on a series she wrote.
I just finished reading, “Around the Bloc” by Stephanie Elizondo Griest. Its about the author’s travels in communist countries. I really recommend it, and I think she just came out with another book.
I loved “The Time-Traveler’s Wife” — could NOT put it down.
“Erasure” by Percival Everett
“Rendezvous Eighteenth” by Jake Lamar.
Both are great reads.
If you’ve got a bit more time, “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand is a great choice if you’ve never read it.
STAY AWAY from James Patterson’s last 2 or 3. His stuff has gotten horribly…”par”…lately.
Good luck.
-Mau
I second Around the Bloc. I just lent it to someone last week actually. It really is very good. Wicked by Gregory Maguire is fantastic as well.
I have a suggestion… if, for some odd reason, you feel like you need YASP (yet another social profile), join LibraryThing. That way you can see what all your LibraryThing friends (or whatever they’re called on there) are reading. Plus, if you’re like me, you might think cataloguing and organizing are fun.
@Anna: I read Love is a Mix Tape. It was cool, although I think I would have enjoyed it far more if I knew more about music. Sheffield is a good writer though.
@Amber: Thanks for the suggestion, but I can’t handle managing another social profile right now :-).
If you like a good thriller that’s a fast read and exciting throughout you have to read Freeze Frame by B. David Warner.
Another great read is Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett one of my all time favorites.