What Are Your Favorite Books?

I read constantly as a child also -- everywhere and anywhere -- I always had my nose stuck in a book :-) Congrats on the reviewing position -- that's wonderful! I'm so envious, I would love to do something like that. Maybe someday :-)

I read a lot of mysteries but also a lot of historical fiction and historical mysteries. I don't know that I have "favorites" per se since I read so much. For example, I really like the Molly Murphy mysteries which are set in New York around 1900 and feature a young Irish immigrant woman who solves mysteries. They are quite good and I'm hoping to get the latest one soon -- Tell Me, Pretty Maiden.

But I have lots of others that I love also -- so many books, never enough time :-)

Thanks Marie. Picking out favorites will be the hard part for me. I want to share a mix of new and classic with all genres. I'm also excited about finding some good Children's books to review and then pass on to our future grandbaby (who is growing steadily and presenting as a nice baby bump now.)

I love books too Trish, and that entire hitting your head on a pole while reading I can entirely comprehend. Been there, done that. Currently I'm reading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. After that, I'm moving on to her New Vampire Chronicles series. She recently dedicated her work to God and writes only about that now. I'd be interested in reading reviews of her newest works. I imagine that would be historical fiction. My favorite books though are those by John Grisham-- I have every last one. Some I like better than others.

Thanks Ashley, your suggestions are helpful. I loved the New Vampire Chronicles series even though people from my growing up days would have been surprised that I read such books. John Grisham is also a strong writer with a nice following.

I'm a sci fi head (just look at my profile). My absolute favorite books in that genre, read multiple times, include: Dune (Frank Herbert), Snowcrash (Neal Stephenson), Perdido Street Station (China Mieville), and Battlefield Earth (L. Ron Hubbard) [a guilty pleasure].

Other fantastic books in this genre include: Altered Carbon (Richard Morgan), Rendevous with Rama (Arthur Clarke), Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds), The Skinner (Neal Asher).

Anything by Iain Banks, Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds and Neal Asher are so high up on my list, I even buy them hardback.

Holler if you need more direction. :)

Trish,

Congratulations on this job, quite as good as working in a chocolate factory, I suspect. Well, almost.

The Girl With The Golden Shoes by Colin Channer is a novella. It is about 14 year old island girl near Jamaica during WW1. It has the most fresh use of language. Usually I don't like to read any dialect but this writer is a wonderful talent and weaves it in flawlessly.

Thank you so much for the offer to review Gather writers.

http://barbarychaapel.eveusa.com

There you will see No Name Harbor, Poetry of Barbary Chaapel.
And I'll be happy to send you the book as an attachment.

I love reading children's books and currently I am reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. The movie is on Lifetime next weekend and I would like to finish it by next week.

Thanks for all of the great ideas! I'm starting to get excited.

Any Mitch Albom book ...

I like Dean Koontz, he' my favorite. I haven't read a book in awhile though, bad, bad me!

Books are my favorite thing to purchase (well it's a close race with shoes). I understand about reading all the time. When I was in school I often got in trouble for reading because I would sneak a book in my desk and miss out on the lessons. I couldn't seem to put the book down once I started.

I'm currently reading George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four and I am really enjoying it. It could be the political science nerd in me. I was ashamed that I haven't read it until now.

Cold Sassy Tree but Olive Ann Burns is a great read. I read PS: I love you a few months ago and loved every bit of it. It's not a difficult read but it's so heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time I'm not ashamed to admit I love it to everyone.

I'm a huge fan of children's books as well and I love The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Dr. Seuss's Oh The Places You'll Go is always a great read and the message is great for children. It still inspires me when I'm doubting myself today. Where the Wild Things Are is such a fun read. When I'm reading it to children I let them have a wild rumpus and they love it. They want me to read it over and over so they can have the rumpus mulitple times.

I could go on and on but I'll stop now.

Congratulations on your new position and I can't wait to see your reviews.

I just found the name to one of my absolute favorite books I read while in middle school. It is Both Sides of Time by Caroline Cooney. It was such a vivid read.

Thanks everyone. You've reminded me of some of my former reads and made me want to read some others that you've mentioned. This is going to be exciting to get to know such a variety of writers, books and of course characters.

I was like you Trish, I read all day and all night. When my grandparents moved from their huge manor houses, my dad was the one who got all the books. Our addict was filled with books of all kinds and in many different languages, so there was always a new book to read.

Congratulations on the reviewing position Trish!


One of my favorite book series is Michelle's Paver's Eden/Daughter of Eden series. Wow, I wish it would never end, but as all books the series did end.

That's really neat that you are able to do that! I bet it would be fun. I love all sorts of books, but I really enjoy reading Young Adult Fiction. The Pendragon series is a good one.

I read so much but Sarah's post has reminded me that Young Adult Fiction is often an excellent way to stay "in the loop" of what teens may be thinking or doing. I haven't been reading nearly enough of that lately!

I'm still hooked on Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Perzig. The only problem with this book is that chapter 4 usually blows people away.

A great book is Major Poets: English And American, edited by Charles M Coffin. Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc. 1954.

Another is 'When She Was Good' by Philip Roth.

Thanks everyone. William, I'm also a fan of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!

I am a huge reader myself. I average 6-10 books a week, I constantly have one in my hand and I even read e-books online while at work. I love all genres but my favorites lately are anything by christoper moore, laurell k hamilton, sherrilyn kenyon, kim harrison, and on and on. I also really enjoy childrens/young adult novels.

For something different I would recommend the childrens series by Cornelia Funke that starts with "Inkheart" and continues with "Inkspell" they are engrossing and very interesting.

For Science Fiction I would recommend Kevin Anderson's "Saga of the Seven Suns" but I can't remember the names of the individual books in the series (fantastic fiction website - google it - will tell you what order they were written in.

In science fiction I also recommend Piers Anthony, his Incarnations of Immortality series is great and starts with a book called "On a Pale Horse" which is an excellent story about a guy who was trying to kill himself but death got there a moment too soon and he ended up killing death instead and ended up having to take the job going around collecting souls so people can die and weighing them to see how much good they have in them. It is truly an interesting series.

Another great Science Fiction Series is Anne McCaffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern series.

If you like puns the Piers Anthony series Xanth has a lot of them!

Terry Brooks is a good sci-fi author with his Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold and its sequels.

Terry Pratchett is good too but I like his book he coauthored with Neil Gaimen called "GOOD OMENS" it is hysterical.

Some other interesting childrens/young adult books are Holly Black's dark fairy series "TITHE", "VALIANT" and "IRONSIDE".

There are many many more, I read EVERY GENRE and have also been trying to expose people to more different types of books such as the review I did on the series by Stephanie Rowe that I loved that started with "Date me baby one more time" and is followed up with "MUST Love Dragons", "he loves me he loves me hot" and "Sex and the immortal bad boy"

Good luck and hope you enjoy some of the suggestions!!! If nothing else at least give INKHEART a try it is really a good one and I am currently reading it out loud to my kids and my husband when we go places in the car and they are all captivated!

I got so excited to comment, I never read any other comments...but just think! You need to buy baby board books...I gave them to the girls when they went to bed...nap or night...3"x3" board books that they could chew on or flip through. THey won't go to bed without a book...even today. And reading is the key to education! Later when they would not nap (a sign of high IQ), i told them that they needed to read in bed for 30 minutes and if they went to sleep, I would let them sleep, if not I would be back in 30 minutes and they could get up. I think after 18 months, there were maybe 10 days where they slept. ANd, my kids came to me by adoption, so they didn't get their high IQs from me...so I am not being a bore.

Okay...I love Howard FAst...April Morning, The American, The Hessian, Spartacus, Freedom Road, Citizen Tom Paine...

sacco and Venzetti

hello Trish... i'm very happy for you... how great to get to read and review and make money for it... i really just read magazines mostly, but the baby books sound like lots of fun for the new Grandbaby... love that you can see the 'baby bump'....
Blessings to you and Shan and the whole family... love you... be well...


Girly Comments & Graphics

I just stopped by to wish a very "Happy Birthday" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was attempting to read The Memory Keeper's Daugther. The movie is on Lifetime next week and I wanted to try to finish it before the movie; but for some reason I have not been that into fiction lately so I am reading a book by Anne Lamott called Traveling Mercies. She is kinda like CS Lewis but very edgy and frank and not ashamed to share about her past.

Hi Trishcongratulations! So are you going to be a book correspondent for Gather? That's awesome. I read quite a lot myself as well and there are a number of different genres I am keen on. Currently I am trying to read a few literary books. I am in the middle of reading "The Gathering" by Anne Enright, she won the booker prize in 2007..and loving it so far. I can also recommend "Mr Pip" by Lloyd Jones and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid.

On a lighter note, try reading "Bitter Sweets" by Roopa Farooki, this is her debut novel and was short listed for the Orange prize.

Have you discovered Kazuo Ishiguro yet? I am awestruck by his prose. If you have not already, may be you would like to read "An Artist of the Floating World" and "Never Let me Go"... really different and the writing is so lyrical..

I think I can go on and on and on, but better stop here for now, let me know if you need some more names of books for future reviews, I would love to suggest more names. :)

I read just about anything I can get my hands on. I don't know what ones are my favorite though, I'm not very good at picking favorites!

It's not for Gather Luna. I can't say for whom until they announce.

hello sweet Trish... i forgot to say this... i love you...



Happy Birthday Glitters

An author I became aware of only a year ago writes truly excellent historical fiction, Joseph Kanon. He hasn't written many books yet, only four. I'll note them in the order in which I read them.

_The Good German_ takes place at the end of World War II in Germany when it was occupied by the allies. It's also a mystery, very absorbinig.

_Alibi_ is also around 1945 about rich people in Venice whose lives go on in spite of the War.

_The Prodigal Spy_ centers on the son of a man who Joe McArthy was going after in the 50s. In the case of this man (the father), he really was a Communist.

I'm reading the fourth, _Los Alamos_, now. It's about the lives of the people building the atomic bomb and one man's investigation of a murder there.

I enjoyed most _The Good German_. If you saw that movie, I know, it was terrible. It's not like the book at all, I promise.

Here's a suggestion for sci fi: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Russell is an author I wasn't aware of until last year, and she isn't one you hear much about when science fiction is listed. But this is very, very good. It also has a sequel, which I haven't read yet, Chiildren of God. I know, it sounds like a religious book; it's not.

I too walked into my share of poles whilst reading books. My two favorite sci-fi authors are Anne McCaffrey and Madeleine L'Engel. Although I like the Pern stories by McCaffrey, I really love the "ship who..." series. Lately I've been reading classics, world lit and books on the "1,001 books you must read before you die" list. Historical novels that I love include, The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

Thank you so much for all of your suggestions. I'm going to put together a list from your suggestions. I hope I get to do this job for a few years so I can review all these wonderful books and authors!

Hi Trish Now I am REALLY curious about your book reviewer role. :). Please keep us in the loop once a formal announcement is made.

Luna, I'll let you know as soon as I can tell you. Thanks for your interest. I've been collecting the ideas.

My taste in books is very eclectic. I'll read practically anything. I just love to read.

Congratulations on your new position. How I would love to read books for a living! *Wondering if I could get a job with a publisher.*

Bryce Courtenay ... fav is "Power of One"

Bryce Courtenay is the bestselling author of The Power of One, Tandia, April Fool's Day, The Potato Factory, Tommo & Hawk, Jessica, Solomon's Song, A Recipe for Dreaming, The Family Frying Pan, The Night Country, Smokey Joe's Café, Four Fires, Matthew Flinders' Cat, Brother Fish, Whitethorn, Sylvia and The Persimmon Tree (November 2007).

Fiona Buckley aka Valerie Anand
Ursula Blanchard Series - Elizabethan Mystery/Adventure
other historical settings

I have fun reading Julie Garwood's historical romances.

New science fiction to read is the JD Robb series about Lt Eve Dallas .... it is a series so start from the beginning. JD Robb is also known as Nora Roberts.

I saw where Tess Gerritson has written a historical mystery The Bone Garden which I have but have not yet read.

Thanks Anita!

I would like to read a book called 'The Adventures of Flickertail,' but the author (Marge) is more interested in making popsicles, or using llama fertilizer for her garden.

Do couch potatoes read books?

William, I await the publication of "The Adventures of Flickertail!" I would definately select it to review.

Hi Trish! I'm so glad for you on this position - how fun! What about Fannie Flagg books, like "Can't Wait to Get to Heaven"... I'm currently reading Diana Gabaldon's "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade" and a collection called "The Adams-Jefferson Letters"... I find more and more I love historical fiction and non-fiction. There was one I recently finished that I just loved, but I'll have to get the title for you...

I have always been a reader, like you. I was an only child and got my love of language through books. I tried reading to my boys a lot as they grew up but like a lot of boys do, they got busy and reading was not as exciting to them. Not when there's playstation and friends and basketball. ha.

oh, yes! "Then She Found Me" by Elinor Lipman. There is a movie coming out about this book but some of the story has changed, from what I can tell of the synopsis. I loved the book.