Okay, I love to read and am always looking for new stuff, so I thought maybe we could start a Booklist here and maybe discuss some books/ reccomend some new reads.


Right now, I am rereading "Memoirs of a Geisha". It is really good and I hear it's being made into a movie. I am so fascinated by the Geisha culture that is illustrated in this book. Has anyone read it?

I haven't read much of anything lately. But I'm looking for stuff so start posting more!

Oh cool!!! This is sooo the time of year that I get caught up on my reading...That's the one of the few good things that I can come up with regarding the off-season! Very few things beat sitting back in your fave chair with a blanky and a good book!!!

So what does everybody like to read? I will read pretty much anything...The girly girl in me likes some romance sometimes (primarily Fern Michaels, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steele, etc). My all-time favorites are mysteries, I guess...My fave new author is Harlan Coben. (IF you ever want a real page-turner with twists and turns on every page, his newer books are FANTASTIC!!!)

I've never gone wrong with old faithful Stephen King's (although I have to pick and choose WHEN I pick one of these up...Cold, dreary nights are NOT a good choice for these)

From time to time, I have the urge to pick up some of my classics and re-read them just for the heck of it. "Little Women" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" (my all-time favorites of LIFE!!!)

The best book I've read recently is "The Guardian" by Nicholas Sparks...Romance with Mystery thrown in for good measure!!! Just finished it earlier, as a matter of fact!

Summary:

Julie Barenson's husband left her two unexpected gifts before he died - a puppy and the promise that he would always be watching over her. A few years later, Julie (at age 29) realizes that she's too young to give up on ever falling in love again. Two men come to the forefront of her mind: Richard (an engineer who treats her like a queen) and Mike (her late husband's best friend who has been her rock for years). Choosing one of them should bring her more happiness than she's had in years...Instead, Julie is soon fighting for her life in a nightmare spawned by deception and jealousy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!

I really like Nicholas Sparks! I cried so hard reading "A Walk to Remember".

On summer I lived @ my college while I was interning and was sooo bored, I read about 4 books a week, no lie.

I REALLY enjoy contemporary 'Chic Lit'. I am such a 'quarter life crisis' girl and can really relate to chic lit! My favorite authors are Jennifer Weiner and Sarah Mlynowski.

'Good is Bed' by Jennifer Weiner is my fav. book of all time. Here is a summary:
For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body. But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.

Her second book, 'In Her Shoes' is great as well. It being made into a movie starring Cameron Diaz.

I also reccomend 'The Lovely Bones'. (non chic lit) It is amamzing.

I'm going to pin this thread for you guys :)

I love "The Lovely Bones". Alice Sebold rocked with that one. Books are noted - gonna have a lot of down time this winter!

Ooohhh...I sense a trip to the bookstore in the near future!!! Thanks, ladies....

I have actually picked up "The Lovely Bones" before on a couple of different occasions, but I've always ended up getting something different. Looks like I need to actually make it to the register with it this time...

Definitely pick up 'The Lovely Bones'. I lent it to my Aunt and she passed it along at work and everyone loved it.

I just started touching the void which is based on a true story. They just made it into a movie. Its about 2 guys were climbing the andes when something happened. One of the guys fell off the ice edge and broke his leg. His friend is trying to help him but can't. So he tries to head back for help thinking that his friend is dead and he might not get back in time. His friend though survived the fall but had a broken leg and was in a deep crevasse. He somehow climbs his way over the cliffs and canyons of the andes. By the way there is a blizzard. He was able to overcome the odds and made it back to camp alive. I can't wait to find out what made him go on and what he was thinking the whole time. I will update ya guys once I'm finished!

Wayne!

Yes indeed you do. It is DEFINITELY worth the buy. I've actually read it about 4 times right now.

Okay--so I'm a history dork, and I love the outdoors--so I've been reading alot of books about our local national park--The Great Smoky Mountains. I guess partly b/c I volunteer there and have to see the bookstore all day when I work! LOL!!

Anyways-if you like that kind of stuff "Wild East" is a great book about the history of the park and how the locals reacted to their fates of having been removed from their homes. I liked it b/c it showed both sides of the fence--when most try to paint a "hollywood" picture that the Smokies were like Yellowstone or many of the western parks, indeed, they are nothing like them at all. People had lives and roots in the mountains and had to give many sacrifices for the park to be made. Many arguements and court battles still linger over the park today that stemmed from this creation.

Also, "Dorie, Woman of the Mountains" will be another excellent find. She was exactly as the books states--she was a strong-willed, and hard working woman who had many trials and different situations to overcome in her life. It starts in the late 1800's and follows Dorie thru her childhood up to her death, it is written by one of her children. Both are very good reading, I have read Dorie 2x already.

Hope you guys enjoy!

If any of you are into the spirtual/metaphysical stuff, anything by Doreen Virtue is excellent. Some of it details her experience from life before "knowing" (I want to say it's Divine Guidance but can't be sure) to how she communicates with Angels.

There's also "Healing with the Angels" which is good for a day to day of whatever you're going through for a pick me up and/or insight, as well as "Messages from Your Angels" and several others who's names escape me at the moment.

Another good book, but it's difficult to grasp at times, is "The Celestine Prophecy." Basically, it's about a guy who ends up going to Peru in search of 9 insights to that are being protected by the Peruvian government that would help one gain knowledge of one's "higher self" and life progress. There's several sequels, although I haven't read those yet.

"The best book I've read recently is "The Guardian" by Nicholas Sparks...Romance with Mystery thrown in for good measure!!! Just finished it earlier, as a matter of fact!"



I love Nicholas Sparks. I am reading "The Guardian" right now. My Mom is reading "The Wedding", gonna snatch that one from her when she's done.


Melissa

You have to tell me how the wedding was. I worked at borders and some people hated it and some people loved it. I need a good review lol

Wayne!

I will let you know Wayne.

Melissa

I've read "The Wedding" ~ and loved every second of it!!! May have had something to do with the fact that I read it not TOO long after my own wedding...

"Wasted: The Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" by Marya Hornbacher is REALLY good. It's the story of her struggle with anorexia and bulimia. Definitely a good read if you like memoirs.

I like to read books by Lurlene McDaniel. They always seem to make me cry.

I'm into a lot of different books. My main thing right now are fictional and non-fictional books about witch trials in colonial America. I just finished a fiction book that's sort of like a diary of a witch in those times, and it's very good. It's called "Witch Child" by Celia Rees.

I like any kind of supernatural mysterious fiction stories. So if anyone has any suggestions of books about ghosts/witches or anything supernatural like that let me know. I also like mysteries so any suggestions would be great.

I read that awhiel ago and want to read it again. I was too young (18) at the time to grasp somethings adn I have it, but never read it again. Might have to be my next book!

I've read it twice and still can't grasp all of it! LOL

A few more good ones that are true stories:

"Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

"A Child Called It" by Dave Pelzer
"The Lost Boy" same author
"A Man Named Dave" same author
^^ These three are a series...definitely a good read, but a little gruesome and definitely tragic!

oh, i won't even lie. i'm the biggest book nerd (ok book nazi) out there... my favorite stuff is from beat generation authors (kerouac, burroughs, ginsberg) and burgess' a clockwork orange (which has an AWESOME foreword btw)

here's my *short* list of faves:

this side of paradise (fitzgerald), catcher in the rye (salinger), on the road (kerouac), the perks of being a wallflower (chbosky), catch 22 (heller), the sun also rises (hemingway), ecstasy club (rushkoff), junky (burroughs), brave new world (huxley), 1984 (orwell), orpheus emerged (kerouac), farenheit 451 (bradbury), the choclate war (cormier), i am the cheese (cormier), a clockwork orange (burgess)

and as far as philosophical stuff, i loved education and the signifance of life (krishnamurti), beyond good and evil (neitzsche), and nichomachean ethics (aristotle) .... those are all books ive read for certain classes, and yeah, had to read em for class... and im glad i did. honestly... its pretty enlightening stuff, really gets me thinking, definitely worth the read lol.

and for more mindless reading, i'd recommend clive barker novels, which have more graphic you-know-what scenes than most romance novels (theyre GREAT)... theres just some suspense, horror, etc involved :) john saul is another great horror genre author.

and... i love nora roberts books... heh.

i'm already starting my next summer reading list... crime and punishment (dostoyevsky), mein kampf (hitler), the prince (machiavelli), and some more hemingway.... its like some sick compulsion to read every "classic" novel before im 21. i think i may re-read bradbury's "something wicked this way comes" too. that was pretty spectacular.

let me know if anyone has read any of these (and enjoyed them, lol)

My guilty pleasure!! Her and J.A. Jance (detective/mystery author).....

I read this series a while back....Makes me teary just thinking about it! But seriously, they are REALLY good!!!

He's got a fourth one out, but I'm waiting for it to be put into paperback.

I had to read and analyze "A Child Called It" for my Child Abuse and Neglect class last spring.

I read The Prince last year for my college World Cultures class and I thought it was pretty interesting

if you like Nicholas Sparks, try Dee Henderson's books i love them!!

I absolutelty love to read However I always find myself drawn to the Cop Murder Mystery Books... Most likely not very educational and sometimes a little creepy but I cant help myself
...
James Patterson Is The Best.. Especially The Alex Cross Series (the movies never do them justice they are so so much better) As Always

He also A Letters to Jennifer and A Letters to Nicholas ( I believe) that are very sad and sweet

Patricia Cornwell also Exceptionally Good The Kay Scarpetts Series is Amazing..

I have read every book the both have put out so now I just started Iris Johansen
and Mary Higgins Clark Ok So far...

awesome, i kind of know what its about already, but i think that you get so much more out of reading the actual text than hearing someone else's interpretations.


... and nora roberts = the BEST guilty pleasure!

If anyone likes Bill Elliott and reading biography, read "Fastest Man Alive" Its about Bill's earlier years in the 80's. I have read most of it and its pretty good, it tells you just what drivers went through back when drivers raced to earn a little money.

umm here are some good onesThe Propsaland The Princess and Texas Tender



I have been noticing a constinate error in this thread books are underlined short stories and poems have prenthesis do not want to sound mean just a pet peeve

we understand the puncutation problem, but on the same note, your statement has absolutely no punctuation to it whatsoever. short stories and poems have quotations "" not parenthesis (), if you're referring to my error on bradbury's novel (though any punctuation for novels, selections, and the like -- correct or not -- was not included in any of the books i listed off).



i'm just glad most of us posters here aren't real grammar or spelling nazis. my spelling and grammar seem to get worse with every science class i take; must be some truth to the statement "don't use it, ya' lose it."

It also depends on the style of writing you're used to.

When writing in American Psychological Association (APA) writing style, you're supposed to italicize the title of the book (if citing from a book).

i always wondered about the major differences, we use MLA for almost everything here... what is APA used for, some special kind of articles, perhaps?

Mainly it's used for Psychological studies, but you can use what you learn about it and apply it to regular writing. Now, when I have to do a bibliography, I do APA style...

A great writing resource is Online Writing Lab at Purdue. That's where my schools writing center gets all their information.

And here's another resource...Washington State Vancouver Writing Center. The "Writing Space" isn't up and running but there's some links to info there, too....

Anyone ever read "East of Eden" by Steinbeck? I got it for Xmas.

Nope, haven't read that. But I am muy excited because I got Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich tonight (it's a given that on my dad's side, everyone gets a book, got two this year because well, I'm me) and I can't tell you how many times I've picked that up and then put it back down.

i think any author i've been forced to read in high school isn't an author i'll read for pleasure. maybe that'll change when i get out of high school, though.

If you're like me...no it won't...

Of course, I had Beowulf, Huck Finn and...well, every book we "read" in my Jr. and Sr. English classes read to me by the teacher...Haven't picked up Mark Twain since. Nor have I had an urge to read Beowulf or Canterbury Tales, either.