Top rated books

[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/...me-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/