What's on your Beloved Bookshelf?

[vicki]

I love books of all kinds, but there are certain books that are particularly dear to me for various reasons--they may be those I loved best as a child or those that comfort me in times of stress. Some have stayed with me because I enjoyed them at an important point in my life and others have helped me grow mentally or spiritually or opened up new worlds of the past or future.

For these books, I have an actual physical shelf right next to my bed that I refer to as my "Beloved Bookshelf." It doesn't have to be a physical shelf, though (and mine doesn't hold all my BB books)--it can be one that exists only in your mind. Not everyone understands the BB concept, but as we're all book-folk here, I figured it might be fun to share our BB lists. Mine is very heavy with children's and YA books, which I continue to read into my forties and probably will all my life.

Okay--although I'm sure to leave something important off that I'll think of late tonight, this is my basic list, or at least everything I can think of at this point:

LRK's books (of course), especially the Russells

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Joey Pigza trilogy by Jack Gantos

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Eloise by Kay Thompson

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Blue Sword/The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper
Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen by Garth Nix
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Cordelia's Honor and the Vorkosiverse series by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
The Seventh Son and the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card (through book three)

A Bridge to Terabithia by Katharine Paterson
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White (everything I've read of hers rocks, actually)
Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
The Facts Speak for Themselves by Brock Cole
Junk by Melvin Burgess
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
AK by Peter Dickinson
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Gaudy Night and the Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy L. Sayers
Mallory's Oracle and the Mallory series by Carol O'Connell
Crocodile on the Sandbank and the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters
Night Train to Memphis and the Vicki Bliss series by Elizabeth Peters
The Eyre Affair and the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
One for the Money and the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich
Dead Before Dark and the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris
Guilty Pleasures and the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton (up to Book 6)

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
King and Joker by Peter Dickinson
Some Deaths Before Dying by Peter Dickinson
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Yellow Room Conspiracy by Peter Dickinson

A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester
The Last Lion (vols. 1&2--bio of Winston Churchill) by William Manchester
Personal History by Katharine Graham
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Art of Fiction by John Gardner
On Writing by Stephen King

[spiston]

Thanks for the post, I have a running list of authors and books on my coffee table that I generally forget to bring when I go to the used book store. I'm definately going to add some of your 'BB's, though, and maybe one day fate and finances willing I'll be able to pick some of them up.

I'm in the process of moving so all of my books are packed in boxes and the shelves dismantled.

However, I have a deep fondness for "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy and left it out of the boxes for some strange reason...as well as "The Pinball Effect" by James Burke. Two totally different books, pieces of my soul nonetheless.

Do not hesitate to pick them up, should they be strangers to you.

[alina]

Books, books! My BB is brimming and literally overflowing with books that need to be categorized one of these days!

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
The original Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden by Burnett as well
Children of the River by Linda Crew
All of Dr. Seuss. All of it.
The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis
The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers (the Wimsey novels are a clever read)
And of course the Russell series

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers by Dumas as well
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984 by George Orwell

Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. Pretty much anything by C. S. Lewis really.
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
Anything by Donald Miller

There are more, but they are not here in my room; they are probably out on loan. Or taken from me never to be seen again, which is more likely.

[jtb1951]

I see an awful lot of shared book tastes on your shelves; here is a taste of mine!

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings (my lifetime most read book, ~40x), The Hobbit, The Silmarillion

Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey

L. Frank Baum - All 14 Oz books

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, Player Piano, Breakfast of Champions, The Sirens of Titan

Kage Baker - All of "The Company" novels

J. K. Rowling - One slot still reserved on the bookshelf! :)

William Gibson - Neuromancer, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Burning Chrome, Count Zero, Pattern Recognition, and the Virtual Light trilogy

Mary Doria Russell - The Sparrow, Children of God (both highly recommended!!!)

Isaac Asimov - The Foundation trilogy

Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead

Harlan Ellison - The Essential Ellison, a 50-year retrospective

Katherine Kurtz - All the Deryni novels

Lois McMaster Bujold - the Miles Vorkosigan novels (Vorkosiverse; I love it!!), The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, The Hallowed Hunt

Octavia Butler - Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago, Fledgling

Orson Scott Card - the Ender series, the Alvin Maker series

Audrey Niffennegger - The Time-Traveler's Wife (highest recommendation!!!!)

Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian

David Brin - Startide Rising, The Uplift War

Dan Simmons - the Hyperion/Endymion books, Ilium, Olympos

Jacqueline Carey - The Kushiel's Dart series

Charles Stross - Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise

Howard Waldrop - Night of the Cooters, A Dozen Tough Jobs, Them Bones, Howard Who?, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past

Kim Stanley Robinson - Green Mars, Blue Mars, Red Mars, Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, Sixty Days and Counting (if global warming doesn't bother you, please read these last three books)

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Enjoy!

[spiston]

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond


that was an awesome PBS program, bet the book is just as good...

[2maple]

I see lots of my favorites - To Kill a Mockingbird; Girl With a Pearl Earring; The Witch of Blackbird Pond; and Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond to name a few.

A couple, The Time-Traveler's Wife and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time along with The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd rank among my RL book club's all time favorites!!! (...Vicki, RL...that gave me a few minutes pause to figure out not being a regular IM-speaker).

Here are a few others:

From the non-fiction universe:
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Thousand Peices of Gold by Ruthann Lum McCunn
The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin
Collapse by Jared Diamond
Undaunted Courage by Steven Ambrose
Endurance by Caroline Alexander
Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elizabeth pruitt Stewart
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder

and from the fiction universe:
The Samuri's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
A Story Like the Wind and A Far Off Place by Laurens Van der Post
My Antonia by Willa Cather
In a Sunburned Conutry and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

along with the entire Russell series.....

[Kerry]

My list of "books I come back to over and over again" isn't as long as many of these others, although I have read and enjoyed many of the books listed so far.

LRK, it goes without saying. All of them. For sheer fun pleasure, I prefer The Beekeeper's Apprentice, and have developed a new appreciation for Folly recently.

I haven't seen anyone mention Guy Gavriel Kay, whom I can't recommend highly enough to folks who enjoy speculative fiction. His Fionnavar Tapestry is a trilogy that includes an interesting twist on Arthurian legend. His other books fall into the category of "historical fantasy" -- he selects a historical time and place, adds elements of magic, and spins out amazing stories. My favorite is The Lions of Al-Rassan, set in the equivalent of Spain at the beginning of the Christian restoration/expulsion of the Moors; it features my favorite of his heroines. His other books (Tigana, Song for Arabonne, the two books of The Sarantine Mosaic, The Last Light of the Sun, and Ysabelle) are also outstanding. I am always drawn back to him by his lyrical prose and haunting story lines.

[farmwifetwo]

Lets see...

LRK's, I don't have any Kate's yet, have all the Russell's and TAoD. Keep adding as I find them.

I just got Ever After by Elswyth Thane from a friend yesterday in the mail. I'm only missing Dawn's Early Light now.

Charlotte McLeod/Alisa Craig

Rosamund Pilcher

Mercedes Lackey - Valdemar

David Eddings

Katherine Kurtz - The Adept Series

JD Robb

Lucy Maud Montgomery, Louisa Mae Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Catherine Coulter - FBI only

Julie Miller, Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle

Allison Brenner, Kay Hooper (FBI only)

CSI books from the series.. the books not the comics.

Suz Brockmann, Catherine Mann, Jen Crusie, Merline Lovelace (Code Name Danger series only), Nora Roberts

All I can think of at the moment

Sheri

[alina]

It seems that I must read The Time-Traveler's Wife some time this summer; I've been meaning to delve into that book for so long!

Now I have my summer reading recommendations all planned out! If only I had the time for them all... <sigh of exasperation> Oh well; I'll try to read as many of them as possible within the next few months!

[Scarletquill]

Ooooh! I am so jealous of those bookshelves! :) I have a few LRK's, All the hardcover Nancy Drew, The entire O'Malley series by Dee Henderson, The Invisible Child by K. Petersen and several by Tamora Pierce, along with a review copy of Frank Creed's latest novel, Flashpoint. Grrr, I wish I had a bigger bookshelf....a bigger spending budget...lol.

[alina]

Dear Scarletquill,

Ooh, you read Tamora Pierce too? That's so cool! I've only read her Immortals series and the first Trickster novel. Any recommendations of other Pierce books I should read?

[Kiyomi]

Off the top of my head and with the obvious inclusion of LRK's books my most favorites are-

Anything by-
Tamora Pierce-Children's Books
David Weber-Sci-fi,Fantasy,ScienceFantasy
Terry Pratchett-Satire in a Fantasy setting
Patricia C Wrede-Children's Books(Although Adults probably get more out of them)
Diane Duane-Children's Books,Sci-fi,Fantasy
Robin McKinley(Especially Sunshine)Fantasy
Kelley Armstrong-Supernatural
Arthur Conan Doyle-Mystery
Jim Butcher-Fantasy & Science Fantasy
Jenny Nimmo-Children's Books
Cornelia Funke-Children's Books

Eric Flint's- Belisarius Series,1632 Series,
David Drake- RCN series,Ranks of Bronze,Foreign Legions
Anne McCaffrey-Pern Series,Ship Who Series,Fairy Tales
Todd McCaffrey-Pern Series
Anne Perry- William Monk Series (especially recommended for LRK fans)
John Ringo- Von Neuman's War
Chris Dolley-Resonance
Jasper Fforde-Nursery Crimes Series
Anthony Horowitz- Alex Rider Series

That's all I can think of without combing through the 7 bookcases and stacks of books in my house ;)

[Kiyomi]

Dear Scarletquill,

Ooh, you read Tamora Pierce too? That's so cool! I've only read her Immortals series and the first Trickster novel. Any recommendations of other Pierce books I should read?

I highly recommend all of her other books-
Song of the Lioness(4 Book Series and the 1st of the Tortall novels. These novels feature Alanna the mother of the main character in the Trickster Novels)
Protector of the Small(4 Book Series about the 2nd female knight in modern day Tortall and by far the best completed series so far)
Terrier- First in a new Tortall Series

In a completely separate Universe-
Circle of Magic (4 Book Series about 4 Children who are brought together and discover different and hidden magic tallents)
The Circle Opens(4 book series about the 4 children, now young adults, from the Circle of Magic Series)
The Will of the Empress(A stand alone book set after the events in The Circle Opens quartet.)

There is also a book called 'Young Warriors' which is a collection of short fiction which she edited and contributed a story to. It is by far one of the best collections I've read.

[bobnelsonfrance]

... that these lists are similar. If we're here, it is because we have similar tastes.

A couple of years ago, I saw a list of of Nebula winners. I said to myself, "Self, why not take all these people's word for it?" Connie Willis should be on EVERYBODY's lists.

[jtb1951]

Connie Willis should be on EVERYBODY's lists.

And, she is the BEST toastmaster around!! A terrific writer, and outstanding wit!

[Kiyomi]

... that these lists are similar. If we're here, it is because we have similar tastes.

A couple of years ago, I saw a list of of Nebula winners. I said to myself, "Self, why not take all these people's word for it?" Connie Willis should be on EVERYBODY's lists.

See I knew I was forgetting people!

Connie Willis- The Doomsday Book (One of my personal favorites.)

[vicki]

Vicki, RL...that gave me a few minutes pause to figure out not being a regular IM-speaker

Those acronyms can get confusing. It helps to have a good online acronym dictionary like this (http://www.gaarde.org/acronyms/).

The Doomsday Book (http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553562736)is one of those books that left me thunderstruck. I read the last section in a long stretch into the wee hours and basically staggered around all the next day, stunned and thoroughly messed up. What a great story! I went from that to another of her books, To Say Nothing of the Dog, but I didn't enjoy that one as much. I kept thinking it needed to be cut by about a third.

jtb, you've seen Connie Willis speak at a convention? That's so cool! We have major biblio-overlap. I have a number of your faves on my To Be Read stack, in fact. Must get to Vonnegut.

How could I forget Alice???

Well, conk. I forgot her, too. And I did the same thing to poor Dorothy. Very sad.

Spiston, The Pinball Effect (http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books/11/0316116025/index.html)sounds like it would be right up my alley. And Women on the Edge of Time (http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_piercy_woman.html)(warning-linked review contains many spoilers) sounds good too, I love utopian/dystopian lit.


[Guns, Germs and Steel]was an awesome PBS program, bet the book is just as good...


It's awesome! Sometimes my I.Q. fell short of what was needed to get everything he was saying, but it was still a wonderful read. It really makes you rethink the world and our place in it, which is something I really love in a book.

[vicki]

Alina and 2Maple reminded me of another of my favorites--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time--an excellent book from the point of view of an autistic teen. Another great book from an autistic perspective is Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark (http://sfreviews.com/docs/Elizabeth%20Moon_2002_Speed%20Of%20Dark.htm). Highly recommended. 2Maple, a lot of your favorite titles are new to me, so I'm taking notes. I do need to get one you listed--Jared Diamond's new one, Collapse.

Kerry, I've had several friends urging me to read the Fionnavar Tapestry for several years now. I've got those books in my To Be Read stack, so I'll move them up now that you've reminded me about them. And I'll do the same with my Lionness books. I really need to get around around to reading those. And Kiyomi, I looove Robin McKinley, too--all her stuff, really but I'm particularly ga-ga for the Damar books.

Jasper Fforde-Nursery Crimes Series

As much as I love his Thursday Next series, I should really give this one a whirl.

farmerswife, thanks for reminding me about L.M. Montgomery books. I loved the Anne series, especially the early ones. And I see lots of authors on your list whose stuff I haven't tried yet. I do recall seeing Jayne Ann Krentz do some blurbs for Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Does she also do supernatural mysteries?

Oh, another great one that I was reminded of by one of 2Maple's titles is The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt (not connected to the Tom Cruise movie).

Ooooh! I am so jealous of those bookshelves!

Some of the best BBs aren't corporeal at all--they may consist wholly of books you checked out from the library and loved. But it's wonderful to have your favorites on hand so you can open them up when you need them.

If we're here, it is because we have similar tastes.

Ain't it great? I look forward to finding lots of potential new material for the Beloved Bookshelf by perusing your lists!

[alina]

I highly recommend all of her other books\

Kiyomi, thanks soooo much for the breakdown of Pierce's books!

And it seems my list of books to read just got a good thirty books longer.

Oh, and I picked up a copy of The Time-traveler's Wife. I'm about halfway through with it, and I just can't get over how beautiful it is! I'm trying to read it at a relatively slow pace to savor it...but I am failing miserably. At the slow pace, that is!

[vicki]

TTW is terrific--I predict it'll be on your BB very soon! I wonder what kind of second book Audrey N. will conjure up. TTW is a hard act to follow.

[2maple]

Vicki - If you like Jared Damond, you should also like 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. I left it off the list before because it has been making the rounds of some friends of mine from work and was not at home.

I am keeping a list of titles here for benefit of my RL book club (we're always on the hunt), even though we have the next three months mapped out including We all are Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg (in my estimation, this book to me rises far above her others and kept me completely captivated on flying home from a business trip yesterday), The Worst Hard Times that I mentioned before, and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini as we had all enjoyed The Kiterunner.

[KarenB]

This is so great! I am copying everyone's list to take to the library and start browsing.
More good mysteries:
Charlaine Harris
Kate Charles
Deborah Crombie
Abigail Padgett (anyone know why she stopped writing?)
Virginia Swift

love Jennifer Crusie - romance with HUMOR!

Madeleine L'Engle
Sharon Shinn

can't think of anyone else off the top of my head that isn't on someone else's list already

does anyone know any good lit. that has religion/theology in it - and please nothing that's plot line is "my life is a mess, now I've found Jesus and everything is miraculously wonderful"

[AmyLizzie]

Ok...I love, absolutely and completly think this man is incredible...Philip Pullman and his dark materials trilogy (Northern Lights, or The Golden Compass in America - The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass), they are fantastic, beautifully written, an amazing concept and they will leave you speechless. I love them...read them if you haven't already. Also Noel Streatfield for the Shoe books especially Ballet Shoes and...erm...Marion Zimmer Bradley The Mists of Avalon a really in depth haunting look at the King Arthur stories that will leave you wanting more. Also Vera Chapman, The Three Damsels, a great look at the women in the King Arthur Myth. So theres a few...classics I guess Dickens has to be in there and Milton Paradise Lost is epic, Kipling's Kim and J. M Barrie Peter Pan, great great great :)

[azdolphin]

Oh I LOVE Abigail Padgett -- don't know why she stopped writing

[vicki]

If you like Jared Damond, you should also like 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann.


Thanks, 2maple--I'm always looking for another potential BB book! What is The Kiterunner about? I've heard good things about it. And i'm glad to hear which Elizabeth Berg I should start with--I did try another of her books and it really didn't grab me at all.

AmyLizzie, I'm mad for Pullman's His Dark Materials also. I wasn't right for two days after finishing The Amber Spyglass. I just walked around in a daze. It's funny that Pullman kind of posits himself as the anti-C.S. Lewis, because I love Lewis too. I do have some religious friends who had trouble with the books because of the slant against organized religion, but I guess I was able to look past that to the story, which is just a terrific tale.

Have you heard the famous squirrel story that Pullman told when The Amber Spyglass was just published? It's recounted here (https://lists.bethel.edu/pipermail/christlit/2000-November/006451.html). The girl who sent that letter used to post on a His Dark Materials forum I was a member of years ago. She was just a kid then but she's probably done with college by now.


I read a lot of relatively easy reading books. And I'm not fussy on the genre from Hqn Blazes to Sci/Fi/fantasy (forgot to add we have all the Babylon 5 books as well) to mystery to psychics to romantic suspense etc etc...


Brain candy is so much fun! If you like romantic suspense/thriller books, you might try M.J. Rose--she's got some great stuff. Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series or Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series both constitute some of the best supernatural/romantic/mystery brain candy around. I love those (well, at least up to Book 9 for the Anitas--the series kind of jumps the shark after that point).

Karen, which of the Charlaine Harris series do you read? I love the Sookies, but someone recently recommended a new series she's got about a woman who finds dead bodies. I'm taking notes on your other favorite authors, and will move the Deborah Crombie I have upwards in my stack. And I'm glad to see another Shinn fan--her Summers at Castle Auburn and Archangel trilogy are on my BB runner-up shelf. Interesting factoid: Shinn and Laurell K. Hamilton were two of several young authors who met at a writing conference and formed a writers' group that went on for many years. It may still be going on, as far as I know.

does anyone know any good lit. that has religion/theology in it

Well, there's always C.S. Lewis, but I'm sure you've read a lot of his stuff. In children's lit, there is George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind, which I loved as a youngster. Orson Scott Card has a religious/theological elements in many of his books. And I know a lot of people who love Frank Peretti's religious fiction, but I haven't read any of his stuff.

Oh, I just thought of a mystery series you might really like--it starts with Death Comes as Epiphany by Sharan Newman, and it's about a girl who is training to be a nun at Heloise's (of Heloise and Abelard fame) abbey in medieval France. Her love interest is a young man who turns out to be a student of Abelard's. I love that Newman doesn't try to modernize their religious or cultural beliefs, but she still manages to create a heroine who uses and appreciates her logical processes and keeps them somewhat separate from her religous side.

Who is Abigail Padgett and what sort of things did she write before she laid down her pen?

[KarenB]

Vicki - of the Charlaine Harris, I've read all of her series - the Sookie Stackhouse are the funniest, the Shakespeare ones are more serious mystery with an interesting, psychologically damaged protagonist, and the new series, which are less "fun" than the Sookie books but intriguiging. The protagonist is those is able to find dead bodies and tell what they died of. Also has a weird sibling relationship with her brother - not sure where that is going.

I've read Sharan Newman's books and like the period details. I have a good friend who teaches medieval art, esp. Spanish, and finds it mostly true to the era.

Abigail Padgett had written two series. One is the Bo Bradley ones - she is a social worker with child abuse cases and has bipolar disorder. The other series is a woman named Blue who is a lesbian. Really good writing and both a bit off-beat. Her last book was published in 2001, I think.

Other writers I like that I have since thought of include:
mysteries:
Julia Spencer-Fleming
Sharon McCrumb
Michelle Blake
Jacqueline Winspear

brain candy:
Linda Howard
Elizabeth Chadwick (historical romance)
Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler, etc.)

fantasy/sci-fi
Robin Hobb (more the assasin and fool series than her others)
Juliet Marillier (re-telling of Celtic myth)

I know there is lots more . . . but RL is whining outside my door . . .

[jtb1951]

does anyone know any good lit. that has religion/theology in it - and please nothing that's plot line is "my life is a mess, now I've found Jesus and everything is miraculously wonderful"

Some of the most thought provoking religious fiction I've ever read (and btw I'm Roman Catholic) were written by Mary Doria Russell: "The Sparrow" and "Children of God". Not for the faint of heart, or for anyone easily offended, but I guarantee that you will not be unmoved! I highly recommend them, and would be interested to hear what you think if you choose to read them.

John.

[2maple]

Amylizzie, The Philip Pullman dark materials trilogy (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) are right at the top of one of my daughters favorites...read so many times the covers are in tatters.

Vicki, The Kite Runner, is about coming of age in Afganistan...there are wonderful descriptions of kte fighting (boys battling with kites using string coated in crushed glass...the winner the last kite that has not been cut loose). Many twists and at time heart wrenching but to say more would give give too much away. I would recommend it.

[Kiyomi]

A few more I'd forgotten-

Neil Gaiman- Good Omens,Stardust,Neverwhere,Plays for Two Voices(not for the easily or regligously offended)
Doranna Durgin- Barrenlands,Touched by Magic,Wolverine's Daughter,Seer's Blood(This one if my personal favorite of her's although Wolverine's Daughter is especially good too).

A note about Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crimes, I like them much better than the Thursday Next novels which while well wrtitten and witty are not nearly as amusing and entertaining as the Nursery Crimes books which are amoung my most favorites books. Of course I consder about 500 books a minimum to drag around with me if I have to be away from my 'private stash' for long periods of time. Unfortunately for my husband who may someday have to move out to make room for all my books ;) .

[Christina]

An author with which I have been corresponding sent me this link: http://www.librarything.com/, I looked it over and find it interesting. I thought it might be appropriate to the discussion of one's favorite books. I think I would have to figure out how to use a barcode reader because I could never type in all my books! Christina

[irish]

My BB is more of a pile of books next to the bed and the couch and would almost certainly be littered with dirty tea cups if it wasn't for my husband's need for dirty dishes to be in the sink (what a strange man,,,,,,,)
Here are my faves:

All the Russell and Martinelli's (I have yet to read a stand alone)
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Christy by Catherine Marshall (I was named after this book)
Misty of Chincoteague series by Marguerite Henry
Harry Potter 1-6 and soon 7
Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C Wrede
The Green Rider and First Rider's Call by Kristen Britain (impatiently waiting 3rd book!!)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger this one is highlighted because it is one of the most serene and uplifting books I have ever read, but oddly, also the saddest. I highly recomend it.
The Raven Ring by Patricia C Wrede
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott
All the Ann Rinaldi books
Trixie Belden series (they are now being reprinted)
Emma by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

and my son's favorites are
My Big Book of Trucks
Guess How Much I Love you
Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel
Curious George Series


There are more, but these are in the current pile that I haven't brought myself to pack yet. (we move next week)

I look forward to reading some of the titles I saw on the other posts!!

[Kiyomi]

Have you read any other books by Patricia C. Wrede? If not you should! Everything she writes is excellent. Let me know if you need a list and I'll post one. Some of them are out of print and well worth the effort to find.

[irish]

Have you read any other books by Patricia C. Wrede? If not you should! Everything she writes is excellent. Let me know if you need a list and I'll post one. Some of them are out of print and well worth the effort to find.


I have read all the Enchanted Forest books and The Raven Ring, but that's it. Please post the list. I love her characters and the stories she tells. I can't tell you how many times I have read the Raven Ring and when I got my first e-mail account, my username was Cimorene!

Thanks!!!

Have you found anyone else close to her style?? I am always looking for good fantasy authors, but I don't like it when they villianize (is this a word?) the dragons.

[Kiyomi]

I haven't really found anyone else like her, she is most excellent!

The Raven Ring is part of the Lyra series-
SHADOW MAGIC
DAUGHTER OF WITCHES
THE HARP OF IMACH THYSSEL
CAUGHT IN CRYSTAL

The Lyra books are all stand alones taking place on the same world but at different points in time and places. There is also another Lyra book which has most of the other Lyra stories in it plus a timeline it is called SHADOWS OVER LYRA.

Enchanted Forest in Order-
DEALING WITH DRAGONS
SEARCHING FOR DRAGONS
CALLING ON DRAGONS
TALKING TO DRAGONS

Collection of short stories and an Enchanted Forest short story-
BOOK OF ENCHANTMENTS

Regency Series-
SORCERY AND CECELIA or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot
THE GRAND TOUR or the Purloined Coronation Regalia, being a revelation of matters of Highest Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, including extracts from the intimate diary of a Noblewoman and the sworn testimony of a Lady of Quality
THE MISLAID MAGICIAN or Ten Years After

These are my personal favorites-
MAIRELON THE MAGICIAN
MAGICIAN'S WARD

[vicki]

Karen, thanks for the info. on Abigail Padgett, the new Charlaine Harris series and the other authors you mentioned (another Marillier fan--yay!). I'll be on the look-out for their stuff.

And I'll also be looking for The Kite Runner, 2maple. That sounds like a cool read.

Kiyomi, I looove Neil Gaiman! I just read the book he wrote years ago with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and it was such a hoot. Loved Neverwhere and American Gods, and also look forward to reading more of his stuff. He did two picture books that I especially adore--The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish and The Wolves in the Walls. I'll also take a look at the Durgin books. Those sound intriguing.

And I did try Wrede's Dragon series, but it didn't grab me for some reason, in spite of recommendations from people who like to read the same things I do--maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I picked it up. I thought I'd try Sorcery and Cecilia next, as several of my friends liked those better than the Dragons series. But maybe I should try the Lyra series or the Mairelon books next. I've heard great things about those, too.

Have you found anyone else close to her style?? I am always looking for good fantasy authors, but I don't like it when they villianize (is this a word?) the dragons.

You might try Diana Wynne Jones, who is beloved by many readers of taste and discernment. I'm not crazy about her stuff, but most everyone else I know is very crazy about her stuff. Also, Robin McKinley has some great fantasy stuff, and her newest book has something to do with dragons (some of her older stuff has dragons in it, but those dragons are bad.). Her husband, Peter Dickinson, wrote a book that was styled as a non-fiction book called The Flight of Dragons, but I haven't read it.

Christina, I've also looked at library thing, but the idea of inputting all those numbers is a little overwhelming. And I don't need it most of the time--I've got some kind of inner biblio-compass that usually helps me find whatever book I need in the house.

Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes

I hear a lot about this series and have been planning on giving the first one a whirl. RJ seems to be in a lot of readers' literary harems.
BTW, Irish--have you ever read Ramona Quimby's take on the Mike Mulligan book in Ramona the Pest? It's so hilarious! Your DS might like some of the Ramona books, too, when he's a little older.

[jtb1951]

Kiyomi, I looove Neil Gaiman! I just read the book he wrote years ago with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and it was such a hoot. Loved Neverwhere and American Gods, and also look forward to reading more of his stuff.

Especially good are Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, and his collection Fragile Things! Neil is terrific (and very entertaining in person; see him if you can!)

If you like dragon fantasy, Anne McCaffrey's Pern series is really the standard. Good reading!

John.

[Kiyomi]

To be honest Wrede's Dragon books are my least favorite although I do like them. The Marelion books are the best and seem to be the most accesable to me as everyone I've leant mine too immediately fell in love with them. The Regency one's are good too but you have to really like the setting and the gals can be a bit silly/fluff headed at times. Kim (the main charecter of the Marelion books) is a practical street urchent with a healthy dose of common sense tempered by an overpowering curiosity. She is one of the best female characters I've read. I love how she often solves the situation without having to be rescued!

Neil Gaiman is very good, but I find some of his books a bit odd. I could not get through American Gods for some reason. I don't even think I made it halfway through the book.

[irish]

I hear a lot about this series and have been planning on giving the first one a whirl. RJ seems to be in a lot of readers' literary harems.
BTW, Irish--have you ever read Ramona Quimby's take on the Mike Mulligan book in Ramona the Pest? It's so hilarious! Your DS might like some of the Ramona books, too, when he's a little older.


I originally found Richard Jury in the Naval Base book store and fell in love with him and his friends, particularly Melrose Plant (who also has a rather disgusting American aunt). I do find that her books can be a little bleak, but perhaps this is because of the main character's view of the world. His mother was killed in a Blitz during WWII and he was left an orphan, in addition to his years as an inspector. But they are awesome books and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

Thanks for the book suggestions! I look forward to trying them out while I (im)patiently wait for LRK's new book. Thanks for the Ramona idea too! I have a 9 yr old step-daughter who would probably enjoy some of the Ramona books. I am trying to get her interested in reading, which is tough these days with all the TV and Xbox. I just bought her Misty of Chincoteague to try out and will get her some more books this summer.

And many thanks to Kiyomi for all of her book ideas! Please keep them coming!

Irish

[2maple]

Two more good books are A Tousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (at first I I didn't think I was going to like it...but it played out much better than I thought) and Whistling In the Dark by Lesley Kagen ...somewhat in the vein of We all are Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg but with a far more believable ending (I gave my younger daughter the latter to read and she was really let down by the unbelievability of the ending.)

[Kiyomi]

You're welcome irish! I just relized I forgot two of Patricia Wrede's best books. They are both stand alones.

The first one is 'The Seven Towers', at the begining it seems that the witch/sorceress is completely crazy which may turn some people off but she is actually one of the sanest smartest people in the entire story. The second is a true gem.

'Snow White and Rose Red' is a retelling of the classic fairytale with the authors own twists on the story. It is one of my personal favorites and was part of a collection of fairytales retold by various authors in different settings or with different twists than the originals although most of the main points of the original fairytales are mixed in.

[Lady Natalie Bennet]

Well, here are the few I can think of off hand...I have so many books...

Christine Feehan (as many as I can!)-Vampire romance

Nora Roberts- Romance

JD Robb (pseudonym for Nora ) -Mystery/Romance

David Eddings-Magic, of course

I think those are the most important.

[Carlina]

I don't think all my books will fit here or this will be a 500 page thread...so a condensed version..

First and foremost...

The canon...all of Sir Arthur's Sherlock Holmes works in various bindings...leather...and the reader's digest series as well as a travelling paperback...I don't play around with that sorry so..

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (a Reader's Digest Edition that has some rather rare stories in it written by Doyle but not considered part of the canon..How Watson Learned the trick for example.)
The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (leather binding as well as paperback)

Then numerous biographies and works about Sherlock Holmes..
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street...Baring-Gould, first edition
The Sherlock Holmes Companion
The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Encyclopedia
The Standard Doyle Company: Christopher Morley on Sherlock Homes
The World of Sherlock Holmes
(More being added)

All the Russell's of course...

Jose Marti, The Complete Works (and numerous other first editions in Spanish which I shan't list here because this thread will expand rapidly)

Jane Eyre
The Scarlet Letter
The Awakening
The Narnia Chronicles
C.S. Lewis' Space triology
The Screwtape Letters
All the Lord of the Rings books including the Simarrilion.
The Dead
War and Peace
Mary Barton
Much Charles Dickens
Frankenstein
Dracula
Some Lovecraft...looking to expand this...
Much Hawthorne and Poe

Recent stuff
Elizabeth Peters and her Peabody series
Darwin's Radio
Stephen King...I love the older works...
Potter
Aztec...by Gary Jennings

There are more..but they just got boxed up :( .

Now the books of the trade--a selected few
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Paleopathology
Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains
Human Osteology
Forensic Anthropology
The Myth of Syphilis
Broken Bones
Dead Men Do Tell Tales
No Bone Unturned (Doug's a great guy)
What Mean These Bones
Bone Diseases
Disease in Infancy and Childhood
Skeletal Biology of the Great Plains
Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South
Bones in the Basement
Traffic of Dead Bodies
Death, Dissection, and Destitution
Dental Anatomy
Syphilis (my fav STD)
The Bioarchaeology of Tuberculosis
The Backbone of History
Roll Jordan Roll
Time on the Cross
Without Consent or Contract
Medicine and Slavery
Working Cures
Bad Blood
Pox Americana
The Cholera Years
Doctoring the South (Steve's the best!)
Challenges and Triumphs: Civil War Medicine
Gangrene and Glory
Hard Tack and Coffee

Numerous volumes from the AFIP on Civil War injuries

Some primate stuff too...
Most of Jane Goodall's work with my favs being
The Chimpanzees of Gombe...her extensive monograph now deemed rare
In the Shadow of Man
Through A Window

Other chimp stuff
The Chimpanzees of Tai Forest
Demonic Apes
Chimpanzee Politics
The Behavioural Ecology of Chimpanzees and Bonobos..one of my mentors has a piece in this work.
Bonobos
The Wild Chimpanzees

I have other stuff on neandertal anatomy, Mesoamerican archeology, and southern plantation archeaology as well as medical and civil war history, which are two topics close to my heart was well. These are just a few...probably my most used at the moment. We have thousands of books in our collection...old classics...first editions...etc..

I even have a first edition Henry Fairfield Osborne on evolution :eek:. Cool huh?

Obviously I don't read much fiction, but the fiction I do read is mostly 19th century or horror...

[2bnallegory]

There are so many good books and my bookshelf would have to be large indeed to hold only my favorites.
Some though are:

The Dune series by Frank Herbert (all)
and much lesser degree Brian Herbert

All that I've read of Guy Gavriel Kay,
The Finovar Tapestry
A Song for Arbonne
The Last Light of the Sun
Tiganna
Sailing to Sarantium

Anne McCaffrey's Pern and Rowan series

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
plus all the other's.

Robert Asprins Myth series was always a good quick read with a laugh

Jean M Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series

Terry Brooks Shannara series, the first three particularly,
The Sword of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series

Iain Pears Art History Mysteries not in order,
The Raphael Affair
The Bernini Bust
The Titian Committee
The Immaculate Deception
Giotto's Hand, etc...

Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody are right next to Russell in favorites

Melanie Rawn's Sunrunner series

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter!!

J.R.R. Tolkien

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance series were one of my first really great loves for books

But I must resist the urge to display my entire library.

[Kiyomi]

Perhaps instead of 'beloved bookshelf' it should be 'beloved bookcases' ;)

[Carlina]

Jean M Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series


Oh yes! I have those too! We actually gave Jean an award at my institution so she came to give a presentation and I got to meet her but passed on dinner with her. I was invited but the theme was eating with stone tools....yes alas we do strange things at the Stone Age Institute...She was very nice though and very well-versed archaeologically. I'm so glad she was able to sue and get her rights back after TCofTCB the movie came out.

I did get her to sign my first edition of Clan of the Cave Bear too..I was over the moon!

If you think eating with middle and upper paleolithic tools is strange...once Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp's drummer) chilled with us and we all played rocks and other archaic instruments. He's an amazing drummer by all means..

[vicki]

If y'all like the Amelia Peabody books, you also might like E. Peters' Vicki Bliss series (http://www.mpmbooks.com/vicky/VBPLOTS.HTM). I love and adore it, especially the magnificent fifth installment--Night Train to Memphis. Note--don't start with The Camelot Caper, even though it's listed first on the V. Bliss page, and remember that the first installment--Borrower of the Night--is the weakest of the bunch, thought still very enjoyable. And I hear she's writing a sixth Vicki B. Wooohooo!

Carlina, have you read A Primate's Memior (http://www.amazon.com/Primates-Memoir-Neuroscientists-Unconventional-Baboons/dp/0743202414) by Robert Sapolsky? I just turned the house upside down looking for my copy, which I was going to offer to you, but it seems to fallen victim to my last wild purge of the house. I'm occasionally forced to have one of those--usually when books begin to fall on my head every time I open a cabinet. But I inevitably end up looking for one of the purged books within a few months.

:..(
:..(
:..(

The wisest thing would probably be just turn my house into a library with cooking and sleeping areas. I wonder what kind of insulation value you'd get from full built-in bookshelves along all eht exterior walls. Hmmm.

2b, I have quite a few of your Beloved books in my TBR stack, including the Adams, the Pears and the Fionavar Tapestry. I'll move those up in the Stack. Must. Read. Faster. I've only read the first Clan of Cave Bear book, but I loved it!


But I must resist the urge to display my entire library.


You can do that very thing on goodreads.com and shelfari.com (you may also be able to do it on librarything--not as familiar with that one, however). Then you can plug the page into your myspace or facebook page, or link to it/share the URL as you wish.

If you think eating with middle and upper paleolithic tools is strange...once Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp's drummer) chilled with us and we all played rocks and other archaic instruments. He's an amazing drummer by all means..

!!! What a great anecdote!

Mine would definitely have to be a Beloved Bookshelf, as my list of BB books keeps expanding and expanding.

[tangential1]

Hmmm...I think my Beloved Bookshelf really would have to include most of the books I currently own. I've moved every year for the last three or four (alas, the curse of the college student), and books are not so fun to move. Anything that I don't think I'll a) read again or b) want to lend to someone gets donated to the library.

So here's what comes directly to mind:

Harry Potter
Everything LRK (minus the short stories because I haven't been able to read those yet)
Amelia Peabody (up to about book 12 where I started to lose interest)
Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
Terry Pratchett's Discworld (and I still have plenty left to read with these!)

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Hobbit by Tolkein
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
The Alienist and Angel of Darkness by Calab Carr
Lamb by Christopher Moore

I think there are a few I'm missing, but I can't check because I'm at work:(

This post reminded me that I'm nearing the anniversary of my booklist! A friend and I started keeping track back in 2003 of all the books we read throughout the year; titles, authors, dates, number of pages, number of books. Something of a competition to see who's reading more (which I always lose because she reads about four times faster than me) and also just to see what we've been reading. Kind of interesting to look back on what you've read over and over. Plus you can track by titles the months that were most stressful. I'll have to remember to post something about it when I get it wrapped up!

[parcourir]

These are the books (novels, poems, etc.) that have meant a great deal to me throughout life and that I return to time and time again. Some are thinking reads, some relaxation reads, many are both.:

The Giver, Lois Lowry
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Devil's Arithmetic, Jane Yolen
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson
The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie King
Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
La mort est mon metier, Robert Merle
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington
The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich
Buddhism Plain and Simple, Steve Hagen
Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik
"The Tragedy of the Commons", Science, Garrett Hardin

[mamaocllo]

Hard to list the ones I love the most. The advantage to living in my own house with nobody to tell me to prune my collections is that I can have a Serious Book Room (the archaeology and history), a Frivolous Book Room (sundry fiction), and immense to-be-read stacks (well, there might be a blizzard and I consider being caught without reading matter to be a Fate Worse Than Death). So...(in no particular order)...

Anything by or about Jane Austen
A lot of Rudyard Kipling, but especially Kim
John Buchan (grandfather of the suspense-thriller)
Jasper Fforde
Rius (Eduardo del Rio) - Mexican cartoonist/political humorist, and very funny
Iain Pears' art history mysteries (but I just couldn't manage An Instance of the Fingerpost)
All of the Mary Russsells, in hardback
Robert Crais' Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series
Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti mysteries, set in Venice
Wonderful Amelia Peabody (how could an archaeologist resist?)
All of Thomas Perry, but especially Metzger's Dog and the Jane Whitefield books
Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series
Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series (but not the Liam Campbell ones)
All of Tolkein
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Lyra's Oxford
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's great space opera works
Most of Robert A.Heinlein, but I prefer the early ones
Alexei Panshin
James H.Cobb's Navy thrillers
All of C.S.Forester
Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series
Anything by Peter Hopkirk (non-fiction background to Kim's Great Game)
Hmm - this is getting out of hand, so..
Vast quantities of history and archaeology, especially covering Latin America
A lot of Primate Studies and Physical Anthropology works, but not much recent
{Stopping now)

[AmyLizzie]

Hi all,
I need a good book to get into over Christmas but I can't think of anything! Any suggestions? :)

Amy xx

[Kiyomi]

I like the sound of all those bookrooms. Although I occasionally give a few volumes away that either no longer interest me at all or were presents that having read once out of obligation I will not read again I still manage to have bookcases in almost every single room of the house. Still, it would be nice to have rooms set aside to specifically house books!

[Kiyomi]

Hi all,
I need a good book to get into over Christmas but I can't think of anything! Any suggestions? :)

Are you looking for something long or short? Heavy or light? Fiction/non-fiction/horror/mystery/fantasy etc?

[AmyLizzie]

Anything really, one of my friends at work is getting six books from her sister for christmas, but six books that her sister likes so she can read something she wouldn't normally, so I don't mind what I read really just wanted some suggestions from people that I wouldn't normally think of myself. xx

[jtb1951]

Amy,
Just one off the top of my head: Neuromancer by William Gibson, a classic dystopian masterpiece!

John.

[Ruthie]

I need a good book to get into over Christmas but I can't think of anything!



Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days is fun, as is Jasper Fforde's Tuesday Next series, or if you fancy some non-fiction Tim Parks' books about life in Italy are an absolute hoot - Italian Neighbours and Italian Education. I enjoyed them so much I learnt the language! Another book that is slightly (read very) off the wall is Harry Pearson's Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows. Its about country fairs in north England, and definitely shouldn't be read in public unless you don't mind strange looks. Nina Bawden's "A Little Love, a Little Learning" is a gentle look at growing up.

Now look what you've done. I just went to check on the title, and ended up spending all this time re-reading parts of other books, and preparing a reading pile for tonight! - that took two journeys to move.

have fun with your reading

Ruthie

[mamaocllo]

If you like funny nonfiction about food, try Calvin Trillin's The Tummy Trilogy, available all-in -one with that title, or separately as American Fried; Alice, Let's Eat; and Third Helpings. I found the first one in an airport bookstore (when they used to have real books) and was laughing so hard I was afraid I'd get thrown off the plane. He travels all over the country as a journalist and can't resist a food-related event. This is NOT the oooh-disgusting-foodstuffs! variety of food writing that seems to be flourishing lately. There are a couple of later ones about food-related travel outside the US: Travels with Alice and another whose title I forget.

[tangential1]

My top two reads for this year are The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue (an interesting take on the Changling myth, more literary than fantasy, which is what made me really love it) and Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (something of a coming of age story and a mystery squished into one, although no one I've talked to really liked it as much as I did). I fully recommend both=)

[Kiyomi]

For something that will make you think try Cyteen by CJ Cherryh, origionally 3 books you can now buy them in one volume. Don't worry if you hate the main character in the first book, you are supposed to. The second and third books make sense of the first book and are a very intriguing look at what makes someone who they are. I'd say more but I'd give away the plot!

On the lighter side you might try Dimestore magic by Kelley Armstrong about a young witch trying to do the right thing in a world where magic cannot be acknowledged too openly that looks like our own. You can often find bargin paperbacks of this one at Borders for $3.99 or was it $4.99...

And one of my favorite standalone books, "Sunshine" by Robin McKinnley for those who like the supernatural and vampires but are 'ordinary'(if there is such a thing) at heart. It is realistic not in the setting but in how the heroine reacts to the events going on in her life and around her.

[AmyLizzie]

Thanks for all your suggestions! I'll definitely have a browse on amazon me thinks! :) xxx

[Bachi]

I finally got around to producing some kind of list. Others already mentioned a lot of work I would have had to include but since already listed I will omit them from my list.

Dorothy L. Sayers and Laurie R. King (sorry but these two are worth repeating)
Isabel Allende – Daugther of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia
Lorenzo Carcaturra – Apaches
Tracy Cevalier – Fallen Angles & I heard Girl With A Pearl Earring may be even better which I have but haven’t read yet.
Harlan Coben – Myron Balitar series - another sharp witted, wise cracking New Jersey writer like Janet Evanovich and the S. Plum series already mentioned elsewhere.
Michael Connelly
Jeffery Deaver – L. Rhyme series
Daphne Du Maurier – Frenchman’s Creek
Robert Fulghum
John Grisham – especially The Street Lawyer
David Guterson – Snow Falling on Cedars
Jack London – Call of the Wild
Alexander McCall Smith – 1st Ladies Detective Agency – there is a simplicity here that I find soothing as well as the humor.
Robert Parker – He said’s, she said’s and all!
James Patterson- Murder Club and ‘Max’ series
Nathan Robert – Portrait of Jennie
Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow of the Wind
Betty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Minette Walters- Ice House
Some but not all Dean Knootz and Stuart Woods

[Bachi]

I find Patterson's Murder Club to be a disappointment.

I can't disagree with you, but I haven't given them up yet.

[tangential1]

I was really disappointed by The Shadow of the Wind. I read so many good things about it so I ran out to pick it up and the beginning was going so well....and then he threw in six little words in the middle that completely ruined the book for me: "do what you will with me" (or something to that extent, it may have been "do with me what you will"). I'm not sure if the writing started going downhill from there or if my dislike of those words in that context created a prejudice. Either way, I finished reading rather resentfully.

[Carlina]

Carlina, have you read A Primate's Memior (http://www.amazon.com/Primates-Memoir-Neuroscientists-Unconventional-Baboons/dp/0743202414) by Robert Sapolsky? I just turned the house upside down looking for my copy, which I was going to offer to you, but it seems to fallen victim to my last wild purge of the house. I'm occasionally forced to have one of those--usually when books begin to fall on my head every time I open a cabinet. But I inevitably end up looking for one of the purged books within a few months.


You know Vicki, I haven't had a chance to read that one yet! Sorry you turned your house upside down for me, but thanks so much. One of these days I'll have to get a copy. I actually have a good friend that studies Primate and evolutionary neurology and mental mapping. He's read it and said it was a good book. I do have a couple of Steve Mithen's books as well...

I think the most chilling book I've read on primates has been Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson's Demonic Males. To me it was chilling because I've seen and studied some of the actions discussed in the book. You just can't make up that data and I've seen some of the research footage from Wrangham's site of chimpanzees brutally murdering a lone male...It just sends chills up your spine....Or the use of sexual assault by orangutangs as a reproductive strategy...

Makes you really think about the origins of violence....