Anonymous wrote:Need some ideas of good books! Here is my list:

1) House of Spirits - Isabella Allende
2) And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Housseini
3) A Thousand Splendid Suns - also by Housseini
4) In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez
5) Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

#2 and 3, have read and re-read both.

Also this is one - When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well House of the Spirits and The Poisonwood Bible are two of my top two as well!

And I did really like A thousand splendid suns & and the mountains echoed.

Also on my list: City of Girls, What Alice Forgot, Mountains beyond mountains - the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, the unbearable lightness of being, the art of fielding.

OP here - I have found my kindred reading spirit as well. not many people know Mountains beyond Mountains unless you are in development work. I LOVE that books!

I loved mountains beyond mountains, too. House of spirits is on my list, too! We should start a book club.
-development adjacent

So happy to see someone else mention Chinua Achebe!

It's way too hard to choose, but +1 to Hurston, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Wharton and Lahiri.

What's interesting to me is how much tastes differ. People have named books that did nothing for me. I won't be a jerk and say which ones, because as long as people are reading, it's all good.

House of the Spirits is my all time favorite book too.

I love all of Allende’s books. I particularly enjoyed Zorro. Other favorites:

-Anything by Jhumpa Lahiri, especially Unaccustomed Earth
-Like Water for Chocolate
-Cutting for Stone
-The Thirteenth Tale
-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Pride and Prejudice
Love Medicine
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
Vanity Fair
Middlemarch
War and Peace (I know it's really long, but give it a try. It's stunning)
A Midwife's Tale

Clearly, I love 19th-century fiction.

Brideshead Revisited
Code Name Verity
Life After Life
A God in Ruins
Old Filth
The God of Small Things
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Eligible
Diary of Adrian Mole 13 3/4

Anonymous wrote:Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

+1! This book is so brilliant.

+1 on The History of Love, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and The Tortilla Curtain.

Olive Kitteridge
Anxious People
The Great Believers

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon



Honorable mention:

The Eight - Katherine Neville

Papillon by Henri Charriere

Based in a true story.
It's about a prison break which might sound boring - but it is not! VERY good!!

Anonymous wrote:Well House of the Spirits and The Poisonwood Bible are two of my top two as well!

And I did really like A thousand splendid suns & and the mountains echoed.

Also on my list: City of Girls, What Alice Forgot, Mountains beyond mountains - the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, the unbearable lightness of being, the art of fielding.

OP here - I have found my kindred reading spirit as well. not many people know Mountains beyond Mountains unless you are in development work. I LOVE that books!

Posted before but coming back for more!

+1 to Confederacy of Dunces.

If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (Poisonwood Bible fans might like this one)

The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

The Comedians, Our Man in Havana, Brighton Rock - all 3 by Graham Greene

I Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves

Several by Thomas Hardy - Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Far From the Madding Crowd

Anonymous wrote:
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
Mama Day - Gloria Naylor
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
Bridget Jone's Diary - Helen Fielding
The Eight - Katherine Neville
Autobiography of Henry the VIII - Margaret George
Time Traveler's Wife -

I’m the PP immediately above you. Mists of Avalon is also one of my faves but I read in HS and was afraid to recommend for that reason. Did you read the prequel? I’m still interested in it.

Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
Mama Day - Gloria Naylor
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
Bridget Jone's Diary - Helen Fielding
The Eight - Katherine Neville
Autobiography of Henry the VIII - Margaret George
Time Traveler's Wife -

Well House of the Spirits and The Poisonwood Bible are two of my top two as well!

And I did really like A thousand splendid suns & and the mountains echoed.

Also on my list: City of Girls, What Alice Forgot, Mountains beyond mountains - the quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, the unbearable lightness of being, the art of fielding.