Summer Reading

I started and stopped and my husvand was like no, keep reading. I did and it was AWESOME!

I read a couple Bill Bryson books and loved them--In a Sunburnt Country and A Walk in the Woods. He's perfect for summer. I too am reading the Girl who played with Fire and am liking it.

Time Traveler's Wife is my favorite book, but the author is one strange cookie. I leafed through her illustrated book a few years ago and was mystified. I wasn't in a rush to pick up her latest creation. I appreciate the review.
I am in the middle of The Girl Who Played with Fire. This series is so much fun. I finished the first book just last week and was happy to find the Swedish movie version was already available online via Netflix.
Happy summer reading!

Thanks for your post. makes me realize i need to read more! I totally loved "The Perfume" by Patrick Suskind.
Its different, but very good!
http://www.amazon.com/Perfume-Story-Murderer-Patrick-Suskind/dp/0375725849

I love it when you do posts about books you are reading. Summer is the only time of year when I indulge myself with reading. I just finished The Zookeepers Wife and The History of Love. I enjoyed both. I was glad I had read the zookeepers wife first I learned so much about Poland during WW2 and then the History of Love referred to many of the same events. I also love, love, love Born to Run. Currently I am reading. Locavore. It is another non-fiction book. But it sure makes you think about making wise food buying choices.

When I was teaching, all the guy teachers raved about Russo and made me read two of this books. His writing is lovely, and his story really moves, but I find all his female characters to be rather shallow and on extremes of good & bad. A shame when his male characters are so well developed.
Good luck with your revisions, Noell. No doubt you won't have the above issue.

I just finished The Help. It is such a beautifully written book. I had the hardest time putting it down and was sad when I finished it. I most enjoyed following the stories of Minny and Abilene. Though their lives were difficult, they offered the most beautiful advice on life. You definitely need to pick up this book.

I read "The Time Traveler's Wife" and loved it, I was hoping for a sequel because I wanted to read more about their time traveling daughter and I came across "Her Fearful Symmetry". I was really surprised at the ending too. The author definitely has some imagination!
Right now I'm reading "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, it's not really a story but more of a bible or handbook on thinking positive

History of Love is my favorites of recent years. I gave it as gifts to everyone the year I read it.
I'm going to have open goodreads.com in another window to enter all these "to read" titles!

I concur with some of your other readers. You must read The Help. I am finishing it now and I cannot seem to put it down (even thought of calling in sick just to stay home and read but my conscience got the better of me...yes, it is that good).

I watched the movie with my mom this past weekend. Initially, we were a little skeptical, as it is 2 and a half hours long and has subtitles. But it was soooo good.
Careful who is with you when you watch. There are a couple of very graphic (and violent) scenes in there -- clearly not an American made film.

I LOVED the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and have just started The Girl Who Played With Fire (the day after finishing the first :). I also have Little Bee on my nightstand along with Diana Gabaldon's latest in the Outlander Series: An Echo In The Bone and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. So many books, so little time :) I must say that I tried SO VERY hard to love Eat Pray Love but I just couldn't wrap myself around that book. I made it halfway through (upon trying for a second time) and abandoned it once again. Oh well...every book is not written for every person :) Also, have you checked out or used Good Reads before? It is such a fun way to keep track of what you've read, what you'd like to read and what your friends are reading - really great website!

We read Loving Frank in my book club and while it was fascinating to read about Mamah Cheyney it made me really dislike Frank as a person. What a schmuck!

I agree!!
What a schmuck - but I love learning about the people behind the art...
the things they don't tell you in text books and colleges. It makes it
real. He was a real guy. And she was sort of a schumck too. But, that's
real. I loved it.

I read Eat, Pray, Love in preparation for the movie coming out soon and loved it. I have also been reading silly mysteries from authors that I like. One is Thai Die by Monica Ferris and another is The Chocolate Cupid Killings by JoAnna Carl. Both were good.

So far our bookclub's favorites were:
"Still Alice" by Lisa Genova, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", and "Sarah's Key" and we're really looking forward to "The Art of Racing In the Rain".

I just read Whiplash, Catherine Coulter's latest in her FBI mystery series--I have LOVED all of her books & couldn't put it down. I have always had to read every single book straight-through & then go back to pick up details I may have missed in my haste to find out what happened next! Ali, her first FBI book, The Cove, was set in or around Portland, I believe. Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin was fabulous-I've loved all of her books also. I also can't wait for the next Shopaholic book to be released by Sophie Kinsella.
One absolutely amazing book if you have kids or around kids is NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman which is based on scientific research. I heard Ashley speak at the Atlanta History Center & bought two books that night for me & a friend who founded an inner-city pre-school in Atlanta(I couldn't even wait to get it to save a lot on amazon.com).
I also read Icing on the Cupcake, a fun chick-lit read, by Jennifer Ross. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Piccoult was definitely very different & the ending & how the characters developed were surprising. I don't know if this is a typical style for her or not. This is the first book by her that I've read--I/ve always been intrigued by her covers/summaries but they've seemed depressing in a way. Regardless, she is a very talented writer.
For those with kids or who read to kids, I absolutely How to Get Your Child to Love Reading: For Ravenous and Reluctant Readers Alike by Esmé Raji Codell & Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook.

I just finished Lost and Found by Parkhurst (I forgot her first name) She also wrote The Dogs of Babel. Both are amazing reads. Her story line is very intelligently crafted. Must reads!!!

That was a great read - The Sharper your knife, the Less you cry! Along the same line are any books by Ruth Reichl!

Thanks, Deirdre.
That's really interesting. Do you remember which books you read? Now that you say that I do remember thinking that about a couple of the female characters in Empire Falls, especially the ex-wife. Also some of the side female characters in Straight Man were shallow as well. So I guess it's the male characters that are so well-developed.
He does have some female characters in the books I've read that are definitely not on extremes of good and bad. They're definitely humanly ambiguous and have both weaknesses and strengths. But he keeps their roles fairly minimal, maybe because he doesn't know how to dig as deep with them?
I wonder if he has acknowledged that as a weakness of his? Thanks for reminding me of that. I've been so enjoying his male characters that I've been giving him a pass on the females, lol.  :)

thanks for the great book list, everyone!
to those who liked "the girl with the dragon tattoo" and other books by stieg larsson:
you might also enjoy henning mankell's books about (fictional) tired swedish detective kurt wallander. there may be close to a dozen in that series; some of the titles include "the dogs of riga", "firewall" and "the white lioness".
my little description of him just now probably doesn't show how much i liked those books - quite a lot! also, some of those 'wallander' books were turned into movies. might find them on public television.
an excellent book that i wish everyone could read (and then act upon in letters to 'the powers that be', etc.)is "bayou farewell" by mike tidwell. it's sadly not fiction - about how the efforts to re-route and control the mississippi river over the past several decades has badly hurt the louisiana coastline and the people, marine-life and other creatures there. it's one of my "top five" books of all time - and especially pertinent now, given the bp oil spill. (sorry about the book buzz-kill for bringing up the disaster).
thanks again.

Ali: I would highly recommend "Peace Like a River" by Leif Enger. It's a wonderfully written, redemptive tale. I also think you can't go wrong with Barbara Kingsolver, especially her essays. She's brilliant! Happy reading!

wow, so many good suggestions for books to read! Now to go put them on hold at the library :).
A few of my favorites - like I mentioned above, any book
by Ruth Reichl
(Tender At the Bone,
Comfort Me with Apples,
Garlic & Sapphires: The secret life of a critic in Disguise)
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler
Angry Housewives eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik
Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly
The Girls by Lori Lansens
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
It Sucked and Then I Cried by Heather Armstrong (Dooce!)
Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward
The War of Art: Break through Your Blocks and Win your Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
All 5 star books I've loved! Hope you find some good reads too :)

I second the people that recommended Life of Pi-Yann Martel (love it) Water for Elephants- SARA GRUEN another favorite. Sophie and the Rising Sun- by Augusta Trobaugh, another love. I couldn't get into the girl with dragon tattoo, but think I will try again.

I'm also working on THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS - I like it, but don't love it even though I do love science writing. If you like historical fiction, I loved both MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER by Robin Oliveira and THE LOST SUMMER OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT by Kelly McNees - almost the same period, but totally different writing styles.