Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Book Recommendations

Two friends at work and I were chatting about books the other day and decided to each make a list of 5 books that the other two should read. I’m not ready to reveal my list because a) I’m still whittling it own and b) one of the two friends sometimes reads my blog and I don’t want her to get a sneak peak. I’m curious, though, what five books would each of you recommend I read? You can personalize it as much as you want (e.g., I know Tori loves X author, so she should totally read Y) or as little as you want (e.g., These are the 5 books everyone should read before they die). Don’t feel compelled to impress — I like trash as much as the next reader. For proof, you only need to look in my bag right now: I’m 3/4 of the way through the Twilight sequel New Moon.

If you’re interested, I’ll post my list of recommendations later this week.

14 comments:

Tina said...

This is more '5 books I love and love to talk about/share.'

To Kill a Mockingbird (#1!!)
The Life of Pi
The Time Travellers Wife
Shantaram
Secrets (a very trashy, Harlequinesque novel I found when I was 14 and forever shaped my image of the perfect man. *sigh*)

I can't wait to read your list. And I'm certain to immediately order it from Amazon!

Tori said...

Great list! To Kill A Mockingbird is amazing and I LOVED Time Traveler's Wife (do you know it's coming out as a movie with Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana this summer?).

I don't know Shantaram and need to go look it up.

ellebee said...

I can't wait to read your list, too! I'm on the lookout for good books for summer. I guess I'll have to give Time Traveler's Wife a go given that everyone seems to have loved it (I've been resisting it for some reason...) Here are five books I always recommend:

The Great Gatsby
Bel Canto
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Jazz
Valley of the Dolls (obligatory, though vintage, trash)

Tori said...

A great list, Laura! I'm particularly with you on Bel Canto. I resisted it for some reason (the plot just didn't appeal) and ended up LOVING it.

Please let me know if you like Time Traveler's Wife.

Dorrie said...

I can't wait to see your five, but here are mine: (I hate duplicating the other ladies, but I can't help it)
1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. Ella Minnow Pea
3. Bel Canto
4. Persuasion
5. The Edible Woman
And Laura - I can bring you Time Traveler's Wife (loved it too) on Saturday if you want!

Tina said...

Laura, I think you'll love Time Traveller's Wife. And who wrote Jazz? There are few books with that title.

And NO I didn't know they were making a movie!! Thank you Tori for telling me!! I'm SOO on it the second it's out!! :) I loved Shantaram, but it's loooong. Easy to read and digest but not quick.

Dorrie - I love the title Ella Minnow Pea! I can't wait to read that! :)

ellebee said...

Jazz is by Toni Morrison - not her most well know, but in my opinion, one of her best.

DMT said...

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

So good! Meesh read it as well. I keep telling everyone I know to read it.

Tina said...

DMT- I LOVE Shadow of the Wind. A friend actually gave me a 'soundtrack' for it. It's fab acoustic Spanish music, and it's great for Sunday morning chilling.

I very highly recommend that one!

Spooky said...

This is a hard list to compose... In no particular order:

1) Ender's Game - It's scifi, which I know isn't really your bag, but it's a good read and the science fiction aspects aren't too far out there. It's a science fiction setting, but that's not really what it's about, if that makes any sense.

2) Eat, Pray, Love - I'm not 100% sure how you'll feel about the middle section of this book, since she does get sort of out-there spiritual, but on the whole it's a really good book, and I think you'll enjoy it.

3) The Bloody Chamber - It's a collection of short stories (some shorter than others) and it's all new takes on old fairy tales. Some of them are better than others, and there are one or two more obscure tales I'll send your way first if you do decide to read this (so you can appreciate her twists better).

4) The Perfectly True Tales of a Perfect Size 12 - Absolute trash. But fun. I picked it up at a used book store for cheap and enjoyed it enough to hang on to it.

5) Neverwhere - One of my favorite Neil Gaiman books. Like pretty much all of his books, it can be summarized, "An outcast finds that he is a very special person in a world very close to our own." That said, I love his books anyway, and it's clearly a protagonist archetype that works for him.

6) BONUS BOOK: Ender's Shadow - If and only if you really enjoyed Ender's Game. It claims to be book 5 in the series, but that's garbage. Ender's Shadow actually runs (mostly) parallel to the events in Ender's Game, and from there it's really two series. One about Ender, and one about the protagonist of Ender's Shadow. They're apparently counting the first four Ender-centric books as 1-4.

ellebee said...

I'm sorry to keep chiming in, but I have to second Spooky's rec of the Ender's Game books - the whole series is wonderful.

Kristinn said...

I tend to fall in love with authors, so here are 5 of my favorite authors. I'm happy to recommend my favorite books that they wrote too, if that's helpful...
1.) Sandra Cisneros
2.) Jhumpa Lahiri
3.) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4.) Alice Walker
5.) oh! and for chic lit, definitely Jennifer Weiner!

And I echo To Kill a Mockingbird and Jazz!

Kristinn said...

P.S. - A little-known fun piece of my family trivia is that my sister Jordan was actually named after a character in the Great Gatsby back when the name Jordan was not such a common one for girls... :D

Tori said...

I love a literary name!