The ULTIMATE book review/recommendation thread
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Despite our efforts, it looks like we are not going to get our book forum. (My final plea to Jeff--Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates!) So this post is my attempt at a master thread for the purpose of finding a book to read. A master catalogue of book reviews and recommendations.
I only started reading in the past year or two, so most of my books are recent with the occasional oldie that was recommended. (Some of them I have already posted about on other threads.) The Kitchen House: Very good. Nice follow up if you liked The Help. It's about an orphaned white girl growing up as a slave in the South. Little Bee: Good. Short. Disturbing. We Need to Talk About Kevin: Very good. Very disturbing. It's a mother's point of view about raising her son who commits a Columbine style massacre. Defending Jacob: Pretty good. Nice follow up if you liked We Need to Talk About Kevin. The Secret History: Meh. It's in the same theme as the above two (disturbing youth). It's eerie and suspenseful but gets a little too weird. Gone Girl Sharp Objects Dark Places All three are by Gillian Flynn. Loved them all. All are eerie mystery/suspense. Good page turners. The Righteous: Also mystery/suspense. Takes place in fundamentalist Mormon Utah. Think Big Love meets Criminal Minds. The Informationist: Great if you liked the protagonist in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. (I'm not bothering to list that trilogy here, since everyone is aware of those books. Same with the Hunger Games. Loved both trilogies though). A Visit From the Goon Squad: Very good. Read it at the recommendation of a DCUM post. The chapters jump from various characters' viewpoints and time periods, but it centers around a group of friends that were in a band together in high school and what became of them. Unorthodox: Pretty good. Interesting and insightful but not particularly gripping. It's a memoir from a young women that grew up in (and left) a Hasidic Jewish community. State of Wonder: Decent. It's about a woman that works for Big Pharma who goes deep into the Amazonian jungle to find out what happened to her missing colleague. The drug company they work for has a makeshift work station there, developing a drug based on the local tribe where woman have babies well into their 70s+. Left me underwhelmed. The Kite Runner: An oldie I had never read when it came out. Got it after seeing it mentioned on the best novel thread on DCUM. Loved it. Couldn't put it down. She's Come Undone: Another oldie I came across on the best novel thread. Hated it. I thought the protagonist was dispicable and did not see any redemption for her. I couldn't relate to it at all and found it really depressing and long. I don't understand it's popularity. Oh well. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: Pretty good. Good if you like novels set in other cultures or time periods. That's all this newbie reader has for now. Please add to this thread to keep it going!! |
Anonymous
| Outlander...Great historical fiction/romance. A book you really get lost in. There are 8 in series but Outlander is by far the best one. |
Anonymous
| OP again. Please post book recs and reviews on this thread even if you have mentioned them previously in other posts. The point of this thread is to provide a master list. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| Mary, is that you? |
Anonymous
|
Just Kids by Patti Smith. About her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, NYC in the late 60s/early 70s, the arts and punk scene. Just so good. Reads like fiction but it's all true. You'll be crying at the end. You'll also learn a lot if you care about music and the arts.
Not new but excellent: Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. About the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, but also about the mass murderer HH Holmes, who was there at the same time. So creepy but all is historically accurate. It's a page turner but at the same time you'll learn so much. Did you know Cracker Jacks, Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat, and the Ferris Wheel were all introduced at the Exposition? Read it and you'll find out more! I want to read Larson' current bestseller, In the Garden of Beasts, next. I'll post more soon. |
Anonymous
| Oooh, I have the Devil in the White City sample on my kindle. I'm going to read it next. |
Anonymous
|
The Corner by David Simon: maybe the most heart wrenching book I've ever read, but amazingly well written. It's a year-in-the-life, investigative journalism piece about a West Baltimore neighborhood.
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon: I loved this book. It's alternate history meets noir meets Jewish mafia meets Alaskan wilderness, and Chabon is a hell of a writer. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer: another non-fiction book, this time about the 1996 Everest disaster. I cried. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin: I read this when I was in 7th grade but I enjoyed it equally as much this time around. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: a real classic, but definitely a love it or hate it book. If you hate it there's no way you'll make it through 500 pages of Heller's nonsensical story. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann: This book sucked. Boooring, overly detailed writing with hardly any plot. The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley: A nice memoir of a girl growing up in British East Africa in the early 20th century. Getting a kid's perspective on colonialism was especially interesting. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury: my favorite collection of sci-fi short stories. Bradbury was an incredibly prolific writer with a lot of ideas floating around and it shows! Sickened by Julie Gregory: A quick and disturbing account of a girl growing up with an abusive mother who has Munchausen's by Proxy. Watchmen by Alan Moore: It's a graphic novel, don't laugh. It's better than the majority of novels I've read. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer: Entertaining and confusing. A lot of Jewish stuff and post-modern text stuff like no punctuation, multiple narratives, whatever Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon: another Simon non-fiction book about Baltimore, but this one is about the homicide squad. It's more enlightening than all the hours of Law and Orders and crime articles I've ever read. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth: Good for historical (alternate) fiction lovers. It's an alternate history centering around a Jewish family in New Jersey where Charles Lindbergh becomes prez and buddies up with Nazi Germany. Bad things happen. The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean: A row by row history/catalogue of interesting facts about the periodic table. Great for chemistry geeks like myself. The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman: Hodgman was the PC in the "i'm a mac and i'm a PC" commercials and a resident expert on the Daily Show. The book is...insane. It's a fake encyclopedia-everything in it is completely untrue- but it's written like it is to be taken very seriously. I couldn't stop laughing. Those are the books I can see sitting on my shelf. There are more to be read! |
Anonymous
| I am currently reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks about a Baltimore woman who had cervical cancer in the 1950s. Her cells were taken from her and grown outside of her body. They multiplied at amazing rates and were sold/given away to other doctors around the world to experiment with. The story of her life/family is in between the chapters about medical ethics, informed consent, etc. Very interesting. |
Anonymous
I've read about her story. Her family didn't know and were not compensated. Maybe I'll pick up this book. |
Anonymous
|
Ok...My list....I recommend:
1) TRASHY ROMANCE: *On The Island *The Adults (Espach) 2) MINI-SAGA/TRASHY *Tumbleweeds *The Story Of Beautiful Girl (SImon) *Leaving The World (Kenndedy) *Mrs. Kimble (Haigh) *The Condition (Haigh) *22 Brittannia Road *Firefly Lane (Hannah) 3)DOMESTIC DRAMA/SUSPENSE *Family History (Shapiro) *One Breath Away (Gudenkaupf) *The Playdate *The Other Mother * Every Last One (Quindlen) WHIMSICAL FICTION: *Little Giant Of Aberdeen (Baker) *Snow Child" OLDIES BUT GOODIES: *Dive At Clausen's Pier *She's Come Undone *Prep MEMOIRS: *Undress Me In The Temple Of Doom *Glass Castle (Walls) SHORT STORIES: *Olive Kitteridge (Short stories that connect and read as a novel.) *Short Stories by Andre Dubus PERIOD FICTION *A Fine Balance (Takes place in India.) Currently reading and loving it, thanks to DCUM recs. *Bel Canto (Ann Patchett) *House Of Sand & Fog *A Thousand Splendid Suns (Middle East?) *The Blood Of Flowers (Middle East?) *Dreaming Water by Tsukiyama (Japan/USA) *Bombay Time (India) and other ones by Thrity Umigar(sp?) KINDLE $ BARGAINS: *Mill River Recluse *(Most) books by Karen Mcquestion |
Anonymous
It's very, very good. The author is an amazing researcher and biographer. The Lacks family will have you feeling sorry for them on one page, and infuriated with them on the next. |
Anonymous
|
Questions about books above;
Is gone girl scary? Dh is headed out of town and I don't want to creep myself out I can't get though the beginning of kite runner, does it get better? I have tried to read it 3 times over the years and can't get past the 1st few chapters-my mom is an English teacher and her high school students LOVED this book-good if you are trying to get older kids into reading |
Anonymous
Gone Girl is not too scary. Sharp Objects is eerie but not scary in a realistic sense. Dark Places I would not read home alone. I loved kite runner. But if you don't already like it after a little ways in, I wouldn't stick with it. |
Anonymous
|
Maria went through and analyzed the responses to an older thread about the Best Novel You Ever Read. Her post is a great resource, and it includes the link to the underlying thread -- all 19 pages of it (last updated in June 2012).
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/weblog/2011/07/29/dcum_books I can't remember if I've added some of my favorites to that list, so here are a few: (1) The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright -- Brilliantly written (and Pulitzer-winning) account of the road to 9/11. Though non-fiction and chock full of history, I found it every bit as engrossing and suspenseful as a novel, but of course heartbreaking on a much deeper level. It's an incredible read! While I'm thinking about non-fiction, I also really liked David Halberstam's classic "The Best and the Brightest," about Vietnam and his more recent book, "War in a Time of Peace" about foreign policy during the Bush I and Clinton years. Again, it's history but written by a journalist (rather than an academic historian) in a way that makes it as accessible (and dare I say entertaining) as a novel. (2) Bossypants, by Tina Fey -- Also non-fiction, but completely in the other direction.  Very funny -- entertaining from start to finish, and also smart and insightful. (The audiobook is especially good -- she narrates, and it's like hearing your BFF tell hilarious stories about her life.)
(3) The Time Travellers Wife, by Audrey Niffeneger -- An oldie, but one of my favorites. I don't usually like science fiction of any kind (time travel?!!), but I was completely sucked in to the point where I couldn't put it down and actually cried a few times. (Haven't read her more recent book yet. Thoughts, anyone?) (4) What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty -- Chick lit at its finest. A quick and light read, but then again more. In addition to enjoying the story, I found myself thinking and reflecting on my own life as the story continued. Good stuff! |
Anonymous
| Bringing Up Bebe -- Very interesting comparison about childrearing in France and USA. |