Saturday, November 23, 2013

Looking for suggestions again

Last year I asked for your must-read books. From your suggestions I crafted a reading challenge. A number of my friends joined me in this challenge, and I think it has been one of the more valuable challenges that I have done this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed the books that I have read for it and I intend to do it again next year.

Since I have several books in progress that I want to finish by the end of the year, and because I read one of my alternates, I know that one of my choices for this year will carry over to next year.

So again, I ask you, what books have you read that--for whatever reason--you would recommend highly. They can be serious or fun. Fiction, non-fiction, acclaimed or obscure. The only requirement is that you love them.

Please comment here and not on the Book of Face, so that I can keep track of your replies. Thanks in advance.

3 comments:

Jon Swerens said...

Honestly, anything by N.D. Wilson. His nonfiction book "Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl" is just excellent. But he's also a young adult fantasy writer, and the Swerenses are quite enthralled with his latest series, The Ashtown Burials books.

Glenda said...

I don't know what I've suggested before but here are books I took from my Goodread's list:

1. The historical fiction novels by Michelle Moran. Nefertiti, the first one, was my favorite. The Heretic Queen, the second novel, was my least favorite, which leaves the third novel, Cleopatra's Daughter, as my second favorite.

2. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith was quite captivating. I found myself realizing just how people in Russia were taught to think about themselves and one another, and realizing how different we think and how it can easily be swayed.

3. The Red River of the North series by Lauraine Snelling: An Untamed Land, A New Day Rising, and A Land to Call Home. It is about immigrants who settle the northern part of MN, including their struggles, deaths, and the lives of the next generation. Easy read.

4. Nothing Like it in the World by Stephen Ambrose was an interesting historical book on the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.

5. The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin R. Merkle is a novel gifted to my oldest by New Saint Andrew's college in ID. Merkle is a professor there and they sent her this book when she expressed interest in the school. It is really well done and an interesting read about King Alfred.

6. I found the story in Born to Run by Christopher McDougall fascinating. It boggled my mind that people would run that type of distance for fun.

7. Have you read any of the Jane Fairfax books by Michael Thomas Ford? The premise is that Jane Austen is alive and is a vampire. I found them incredibly addicting and amusing. Jane Bites Back, Jane Goes Batty, and Jane Vows Vengeance.

8. Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 by Duane Schultz is the fairest US - Indian history I've read. He shows how both sides had caring and evil people who make good and bad decisions. Living near were this all happened also made it interesting.

9. One of my favorite travel books is A Castle in the Backyard: The Dream of a House in France by Betsy Draine. The author and her husband are college professors and often went to France for their summer break. This book recounts how they ended up buying a home there and adjusting to life.

Happy List Making!

Anonymous said...

LOL #7

J.S.