Thursday, December 06, 2007

books on the brain

holdin' em up

okay, the perfect day would be one that sleep was not needed and you could get everything else done and still have eight hours to cozy in bed to read. this week, i finished me and mr. darcy (a fun read!) and just finished amy cohen's memoir, the late bloomer's revolution. i so got amy's sense of humor and her book is hysterical. if you can get your paws on it, do it.

2007 was a bust for me in the avid reading aisle and i missed it sumthin bad...but 2008 is gonna rock major booty in the bookdepartment. i am taking the challenge again and upping it a bit to 52 books in 2008. can you please list books that rocked your world? i need to have books in the hopper.

i know there are dorks of the higher realm who read way more than a book a week, but with childraising, working, crafting, and life in Her motherlovin' self, i think a book a week is perfectly doable for me.

would you tell me some of the good books that you have read lately? i need to start my list to work from for 2008.

thankin' you kindly from over here.

16 comments:

Jill said...

have you read "Potty Training in a Day"? It's a new favorite around here...though still not a success. :) oh, to read for pleasure again!!

Rebecca said...

now you did it. can i list a bunch of books for you!? no doubt. some favorites i've read in the past few years: The end of california, the rest of her life, a sudden country, no country for old men, popco, the last american man, a million nightingales, the keep, one foot in eden, geek love. i could go on and on, but these are some of my most favs. can't wait to see what you read in 2008!

fiwa said...

Ooooh - excellent post. I'm excited to see what others recommend too. I'll add another comment later tonight with my list, I need to noodle on this for awhile. lovins - f

Gin said...

If I list the books I've read in the past year, you'd laugh. I have very eclectic taste in books. Oh well, have a laugh on me...LOL...BTW, this isn't a complete list...these are just the ones I can remember.

The Other by Thomas Tryon
Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards
Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Beloved by Antoinette Stockenberg
Lisey's Story by Stephen King
The Lost Garden by Anthony Eglin
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Many books written by Janet Evonovich
Stalking the Soul by M-F Hirigoyen

I will be back to see what everyone else says too!!

Happy reading...wish I had more time to read!

Cheryl said...

On my to do list? Get a list together for you. I've read some great books. I'll leave you one. The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates. What a complicated drama. I listened to it, and it made a lasting impression.

fiwa said...

Ginni - I'm listening to Lisey's Story on tape right now!

Ok, here's my list. Some of these may be repeats, and I'm sorry if they are, but some books I feel so strongly about that I must prostalatize any chance I get.

1. The Animal Hour by Andrew Klavan
2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
3. Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
4. Bad Girl Creek - Jo-Ann Mapson
5. Liberating Paris - Linda Bloodworth Thomason
6. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoulet
7. Houses of Stone - Barbara Michaels
8. The Epicure's Lament - Kate Christensen
9. A Certain Slant of Light - Laura Whitcomb (this is a young adult novel, but it still rocks)
10. Anybody Out There? - Marian Keyes **I HIGHLY recommend getting the audio version of this book (the library might have it) because the accent of the woman who reads it is so utterly delicious. There's a term one of the characters in the book uses for "nice" men, she calls them "feathery strokers". Only it comes out "feathery strokahs". Everytime I heard that disdainful term in her adorable Irish accent I would nearly pee myself from laughing. Please get the audio version, please?

Anonymous said...

Dawn,
wow, that is an endeavor, 52 books in a year. I used to manage that, now, I am not able to read except when on vacation... Hope this will be better any time soon. Some of my favorites right now:

- The Discovery of Slowness by Sten Nadolny (a German author, book is available in English)
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenidas
- The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster
... and, although it's not really my type of literature, I thoroughly enjoyed and actually devoured
- The Swarm by Frank Schätzing - an interesting and scientifically extremely well-researched thriller.

Marilyn said...

Ok..I am thinking classics. My all time favorite has got to be Walden Pond.

Thoreau was way ahead of his time, and was such an extraordinary thinker. He weeded the essentials, from the BS.

I re-read this everytime I need to get centered.

Marilyn

Tracey Sunshine Dumont said...

wow! i book a week! you go grrrl! *grin* here are a couple...

*eat, pray, love

*the alchemist

letters to a young poet is on of my top faves!

happy friday gal!

♥♥!

Brad said...

What a great idea/post - I've been looking for new reads myself and now I can use all these great recommends. I'm a bit of a non-fiction guy myself - (history rocks my world) and my favorite books were mostly written long ago.

My ALL time fav is "Anthony Adverse" by Hervey Allen.(skip the movie even if, like me you love Olivia de Havilland) A great book of short funny essays - "Idle thoughts of an idle fellow" by Jerome K. Jerome. And anything written by E.M. Forster -

Sandra Evertson said...

A quick read, but a great read!
The War of Art
by Stephen Pressfield
Sandra Evertson

Anonymous said...

My favorite read of 2007 was "Five Quarters of the Orange". I sould just send you my SA Library wish list.

A bird in the hand said...

You can do a book a week.

I can recommend 2 authors, if you like mysteries/crime thrillers whatevertheycall'em.

T. Jefferson Parker
Michael Connolly

They are both superb writers to boot.

My old faves: A Confederacy of Dunces.

and "An Instance of the Fingerpost" by Iain Pears.

Like that.

Karen Smithey said...

I've got lots of suggestions, and I love the idea of 52 books in 2008! Will you post the names of the ones you read, along with a thumbs up/down?

For whatever reason, the first book that comes to mind is "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. Changed the way I look at the world, forever, period. Also, same author, "The Story of B" and "Beyond Civilization."

Sis said...

I soooo just stole your list and put it in my own word doc! haha
XO
Sis

Suzanne said...

Here's what I've read lately:

The Dip - Seth Godin
Be Unreasonable - Paul Lemberg
Make the Impossible Possible - Bill Strickland
The Dancing Wu Li Masters - Gary Zukav
The Interruption of Everything - Terry McMillan
The Prayer of Jabez - Bruce Wilkinson
Why Your Life Sucks - Alan Cohen
The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity - Catherine Ponder (reading now)

Read any of those? If not, I liked them all.