Top rated books

[Tweet]

I am looking for a good new book. I have heard of some books that are top rated: A New Earth and Love In The Time Of Cholera but I have not picked them up. Any reviews on these two or any other books I should get?

[Jones]

I highly recommend www.threecupsoftea.com.I loved this book and it had everything I like in a story: love, action, romance, adventure, a great cause(empowering women) and a true story. If you purchase the book threw the link 7% of the profits goes to building schools. I hope the link works.
Jones

[Katie.Marie]

Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert is an amazing book I just finished. A women's journey through exotic countries to basically just live life:D It was inspiring!

[Smurfette]

Yes I heard Eat, Pray, Love was absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to read it. I have read a lot of good Jodi Picoult books such as The Pact, My Sister's Keeper, and The 10th Circle. Also the 10th Circle is coming out as a movie on Lifetime soon. Im excited for that because it was a great book!

[ReadMyMind]

I’ve read Jodi’s Keeping Faith and I’m curious to see how her writing style translates into a movie, The Tenth Circle!!

[TheEthiobird]

I just finished reading Milan Kundera's (of The Unbearable Lightness of Being fame) Life Is Elsewhere and I really enjoyed it. It is somewhat slow and heavily introspective. I have heard high praise for Love in the Time of Cholera!

[TryToKeepUp]

I cannot wait either, I love so many books by Jodi but I'm not sure when the 10th circle is coming out, anyone know?

[divadump]

I'm a huge fan of Jodi Picoult. Too bad I missed the Tenth Circle this weekend. Bah.. I'll have to try and catch a re-run but I hope they did the book justice! Anyone see it this weekend?

[han-grrl]

I read Eat Love Pray too.
it was "nice" i thought...

I am reading Omnivore's Dilemma by M. Pollan very eye opening.

I also recommend for laughs Julie and Julia - its a funny book
and the Secret Life of Bees

Masked Rider by Neil Peart is also a good book

[KnottedYet]

Oooh, "Omnivore's Dilemna" was good! I lent my copy to someone, not sure where it is...

[carpaltunnel]

World War Z was a great summer book. I think I read it 3 times. The Library of Congress has classified it as Humor and Satire, but I thought it was Science Fiction/Horror. If someone can explain that to me I'd be grateful! :o

[red739]

Hello,

I enjoyed the following books:

The Kite Runner
Confederacy of Dunces
I Know This Much is True
Nickel and Dimed
Savage Inequalities

I hope you enjoy them as well.

;)

[KnottedYet]

I'm in the middle of "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time" by Marcus J. Borg.

Fascinating book. When I finish it, I'm going to read it again.

[alpinerabbit]

If you are into natural history, a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson has some meat on the bone.

[kiwi girl]

If you are into natural history, a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson has some meat on the bone.

+1 on this I have 'read' it properly and also listened to the audio book and really enjoyed it both times

[kiwi girl]

If you are into natural history, a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson has some meat on the bone.

+1 on this I have 'read' it properly and also listened to the audio book and really enjoyed it both times

[Lifesgreat]

Just finished reading John Adams by David McCullough. In some ways, politics were a lot rougher and meaner then than now. I came away thankful the thousands of letters used in McCullough's research survived. Abigail Adams rocks! What a strong woman.

[slowlane]

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon
Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver are two I'd recommend

[mayanorange]

+1 on Gabrial Garcia Marquez (Love in the Time of Cholera, etc)

+1 on Barbara Kingsolver

I have become addicted to Christopher Moore books lately- my fave is Fluke. He has a twisted sense of humor, but I like it.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Recommending books is often like recommending movies...even when you have the same interests as someone else, you can still have different taste.
My husband and I rented several movies enthusiastically recommend by various friends we like- only to find said movies completely tedious or stupid. We totally couldn't figure out what redeeming features they saw in them! :confused: Still can't figure it out...and these are people we like and hang out with! :confused:
We've since stopped watching movies recommended by others except for a couple of particular people who we have found have very similar taste to ours. :cool:

[StressFree]

David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Sheer hilarity ensues. If you're looking for something more serious, Suite Francaise is very good.

[Trekhawk]

If you're looking for something more serious, Suite Francaise is very good.

I have this book sitting right next to me. A dear friend in the USA gave it to me to read. I'm having a hard time putting it down.:)

[Crankin]

I just finished a book called Mistress of the Revolution. It is great if you like historical fiction. It's about a fictional character in the years leading up to and during the French Revolution. Lots of history with romance. I couldn't put it down.

[Biciclista]

[QUOTE=StressFree;393388If you're looking for something more serious, Suite Francaise is very good.[/QUOTE]

just put this one on hold at my local library. sounds very well written. I just finished two books written by a couple of cyclists who toured Mexico, Central America and South america. I really enjoyed those two books. Now I am starting on my Christmas Present, called "A Sicilian Tragedy" so far the biggest tragedy is that the author didn't have anyone help him write the book.
Averaging 3-4 errors per page.

[RoadRaven]

A book called "Falling For Science" written by a local (from Wellington).

It is the most readable science book I have read :p

He takes facts, and talks about the stories we create around them and how these stories become myths which people then begin to argue as scientific fact (when actually, the stories we make up to explain our world are often unprovable).

He looks at evolution, creation, migration of people and all sorts of other things. Some really great provocations which have made me think about what I believe and why I believe it and whether I still actually do.

Example:a piece of pottery is found in an excavation. It can be carbon dated. Where the clay is from can be identified.

Then someone starts to tell us what this piece of pottery might have been used for, who might have made it, why it got broken or the reason for it being discarded. None of this is provable, but the story helps build a picture of people, of a way of life, and we like that. Suddenly, the story comes to be believed and accepted as factual.

Its a great book. I'm part-way through my second read of it. If I could I would buy everyone I know a copy of it.

[moley42]

I just finished reading The Host by Stephenie Meyer and was pleasantly surprised by it. I feared I would be disappointed after the Twilight series but it was actually really good and stood out well on its own.

[Aint Doody]

Thirteen Moons by----Oh, I forgot! He's the same fellow who wrote Cold Mountain.

[suelax]

love in the time of cholera was a good one, but marquez' 100 years of solitude was excellent!

[tulip]

Garcia Marquez 100%. I also recently read Le Hussard sur le Toit (the Horseman on the Roof) by Jean Giono. I loved it. The movie was good, too, but somehow I preferred the book. One of my favorite books of all time is another by Giono, L'Homme qui plantait des arbres. Wow! It's short. There's a fantastic Quebecois animated short of it, too.

[papaver]

I loved Quiet Chaos by Sandro Veronesi
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
The Angel Maker by Stefan Brijs. He's a Belgian writer and it's an absolute masterpiece.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781440655548,00.html?The_Angel_Maker_Stefan_Brijs

[chicago]

The Chatham School Affair.. by Thomas Cook.

Awesome book!!.... might be out of print... but if you can find it, you won't put it down!!

[newfsmith]

I've been reading a lot of history, after John Adams I read Walter Isaacson's Ben Franklin for a different point of view. I still haven't found an equally good biography of Jefferson. Other McCullough books that I enjoyed were 1776 and his biography of Harry Truman. Doris Kerns Goodwin's biography of LBJ was very interesting. Currently, I am reading everything by Jeff Shaara, historical novels of the American Revolution, Mexican War, Civil War and WWI and II, and a fascinating book by Ruth Richardson, The Making of Mr. Gray's Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune, Fame.

[papaver]

This is an absolute must-read!

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/paolo-giordano/solitude-of-prime-numbers.htm

The Solitude of prime numbers by Paolo Giordano. What a magnificent book.

[withm]

Want to keep this thread going, and to add a couple

A Devil to Play - Jasper Rees - One man's quest to master the French Horn after a 22 year hiatus. The French Horn is the most difficult instrument to play - if anyone here plays, well I bow to you. This book sent me to the dictionary 4 times. That's a first! Lots of music background. Very interesting story. Similar in nature to the Piano Shop on the Left Bank (Thaddeus Carhart), which I may have liked a little better, but very different styles. If you have any interest in musical instruments you will enjoy these.

The Housekeeper and the Professor - Y¯oko Ogawa - novel about a housekeeper caring for a mathematician who, as a result of a car accident, has only 80 minutes short term memory. Then everything has to start over. Wonderful, charming story, well written. Just what I needed after the dreary books my book club keeps choosing.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Shaffer, Mary Ann. Very funny and another charming story about a sort of book club on the isle of Guernsey during the German Occupation. Good story, well written.

[ASammy1]

The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold

The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd

[lph]

I loved the Secret Life of Bees, but couldn't stand the Mermaid Chair. Go figure.

I'm also getting mightily annoyed at Wolf Totem. It's a mostly autobiographical book about a young Chinese student who goes to study and live with Mongolian sheep herders, and ends up staying there for 11 years, adopting a wolf cub and growing fascinated by the Mongolians reverence for wolves. As long as the author writes straightforwardly it's very interesting, but he is So Heavy Handed when it comes to comparing the Chinese (the "sheep") to the Mongols (the "wolves"), a comparison he dearly wants to make, over and over.

Recently read and liked: White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Swedish writer Stieg Larssons crime trilogy (The Girl who played with Fire) has been a huge success in Scandinavia and I'm pretty sure it has been translated into English.

[papaver]

Swedish writer Stieg Larssons crime trilogy (The Girl who played with Fire) has been a huge success in Scandinavia and I'm pretty sure it has been translated into English.

It's a gigantic succes in Belgium. Never seen anything like it.

I'm currently reading The Angel's game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. http://www.carlosruizzafon.co.uk/