Thursday, April 25, 2013

book recommendations??

i think it's time for me to ask for new book recommendations!  summer is coming, and i have a limited variety of books to choose from, so i'd love to hear any recommendations.  please comment with any suggestions--what kind of book it is and why you like it would be helpful, if you have time, but just title and author is good enough too.
i'm open to all kinds of books: fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, young adult, etc.

here's a list of books i've read (the last several i'm still in the middle of reading) in the past 1.5 years in case that helps you know what types of things to recommend!
i bolded the ones that i generally enjoyed more.
aaaaand, if *you* want any recommendations, feel free to ask me about any books on this list. :D


Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ichigiro
Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom
Joni Joni Eareckson Tada
The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay Suzanne Collins
The Time Machine H.G. Wells
A Life of Jesus Shusaku Endo
Girl of the Limberlost Gene Stratton Porter
Little Women Louisa May Alcott
The City of Fire Grace Livingston Hill
Cloudy Jewel Grace Livingston Hill
Surprised By Joy C.S. Lewis
Life of Pi Yann Martel
Exit Betty Grace Livingston Hill
The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling
The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion
Crazy Love Francis Chan
The Pain Chronicles Melanie Thernstrom
The Help Kathryn Stockett
Call It Sleep Henry Roth
Crossing to Safety Wallace Stegener
The Pursuit of God A.W. Tozer
Foundation Isaac Asimov
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
Tasting the Sky Ibtisam Barakat
Girl in Translation Jean Kwok
I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can Barbara Gordon
Mountain Rain Eileen Crossman
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Susanna Clark
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
White Fang Jack London
Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami
The Man of the Desert Grace Livingston Hill
Green Dolphin Street Elizabeth Goudge
American Born Chinese Gene Luan Yang
The Secret Piano Zhu Xiao Mei
Kathleen, Please Come Home! Scott O'Dell
Radioactive Lauren Redniss
My Name Is Not Easy Debby Dahl Edwardson
Stardust Neil Gaiman
Jayber Crow Wendell Berry
Heroes and Monsters Josh James Riebock
Prisoners in the Palace Michaela MacColl
The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde
I Am Legend Richard Matheson
The Golden Compass Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife Philip Pullman
The Weight of Glory and other essays C.S. Lewis
The Amber Spyglass Philip Pullman
A Praying Life Paul E. Miller
Love at the Speed of Email Lisa McKay
Run to Overcome Meb Keflezighi
Macbeth Shakespeare
Evidence Not Seen Darlene Deibler Rose
My Hands Came Away Red Lisa McKay
Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes
The Sparrow Mary Doria Russell
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Marcia Schuyler Grace Livingston Hill
Pygmalion Bernard Shaw
The Marriage Bureau for Rich People Farahad Zama
The Mystery of Mary Grace Livingston Hill
The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
Growing Up Amish Ira Wagler
Stones of Remembrance Julie Presley
Black Like Me John Howard Griffin
Pure Julianna Baggott
Diary of a Japanese Convert Kanzo Uchimura
The Shadow Lines Amitav Ghosh
So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore Jake Coleson
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
Love Walked Among Us Paul E. Miller
Gilead Marilynne Robinson
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
A Pale View of Hills Kazuo Ichigiro
Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
Connecting (still reading) Larry Crabb
A Chance To Die (still reading) Elizabeth Elliott
The Once And Future King (still reading) T.H. White

5 comments:

  1. Good list. My recommendation is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It has a really interesting premise, great characters, great character development, and it's super intriguing. I don't remember another time when my eyes wanted to read so much that they just skipped down the page as if that was helping me. I had to go back and read the stuff my eyes skipped. So there's this immortal dictator god like person, and this group of thieves wants to go out and try to kill him. Ummm, okay. You have my attention. And it's in this world where certain people can consume and 'burn' metals and it gives them powers. Most people can't burn anything. Some people can burn a single metal. A very select few can burn them all. They're the mistborn, and they're pretty much super heroes. It's a great book, and talking about it is making me want to go read it again. :)

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    1. megan recommended this book to me before and i forgot about it--thanks for the reminder! ooo and i looked up it and saw that it's a series too!

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  2. I like almost anything by Barbara Kingsolver (esp. The Bean Trees and Prodigal Summer; The Poisonwood Bible was good but not my favorite) and Sue Monk Kidd (esp. The Secret Lives of Bees), I enjoyed the Stieg Larsson The Girl Who... trilogy, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Taming of the Shrew are my favorite Shakespeare plays, Mathilda by Roald Dahl is my favorite childrens book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was interesting but kind of out there, and I just bought The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and haven't read it yet but heard it's really good. And I'm going to take your list of books and add it to my list of books to read. Thanks for the ideas! :)
    -Stacey

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  3. Either I got some of these recommendations from you, or you got some from me, because you've got some obscure ones on there that I've read in the last few years and loved!

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    1. some of them definitely came from you! probably every book that you have written about on your blog that i have actually read i have liked a lot. so you should keep writing book reviews--i think we have a very similar taste in books. =)

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