Read about the other books on the list.Cover Her Face (1962)
James’s debut novel introduced readers to Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgleish, the poetry-writing policeman. His first investigation is the violent death of a young parlourmaid at an Essex manor house. “Adam Dalgleish is not drawn from any person I know but does, I suppose, represent the qualities I most admire in a man, ie sensitivity, courage and intelligence,” James said.
Read about the other entries on the list.Sweet Sunday, by John Lawton
Texas-born Turner Raines has found his place in late-1960s New York City as a private investigator, one who tracks down draft dodgers—not to haul them home from Canada, but to give them messages from their parents. What crime-solving skills Raines has, though, will be tested after his best friend, Village Voice journalist Mel Kissing, is murdered with an ice pick in the PI’s office. The clues suggest Kissing was croaked for what he’d learned about covered-up atrocities during the Vietnam War, but there may be more to the story than that. At the same time as he’s trying to determine the provocation of his buddy’s demise, Raines relives a personal past that found him mixed up in some of the decade’s best-remembered events and led him to ditch his oil-rich relatives back in the Lone Star State. A surprisingly satisfying combination of gumshoe yarn and study of ’60s societal upheaval.
Read about the other entries on the list.Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk
What if you could kill someone just by singing a lullaby? Carl Streator is a reporter who has discovered the dark secret hidden inside seemingly innocuous children’s book Poems and Rhymes. In a desperate effort to stop the lullaby’s dark magic from spreading any further, Streator heads a motley group of characters, including witches and an ecoterrorist, on a road trip to destroy all existing copies of the book before it kills anyone else. Written by the author of Fight Club and Choke, this horror story initially has an almost lighthearted feel to it. But as the story progresses, the fun quickly becomes darkly frightening.
Read about the other books on the list.Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Woodson’s memoir in verse spans some revolutionary history—the Civil Rights movement, witnessed from Greenville, South Carolina—but equally compelling is the revolution within, when Woodson discovers the power of words and story. Maybe most telling, when I finished reading it, my 10-year-old picked it up, and devoured it.
Read about the other entries on the list.Circe (The Odyssey by Homer)
The original bad witch. She seduces men and turns them into pigs for…fun? It’s never entirely clear why Circe likes to turn men into swine, so I’m going to assume she just does it because she can. Which isn’t a bad reason, especially if you just want to show off how incredibly powerful you are. Sure, she gets bested by Odysseus, but let’s cut the girl some slack; he basically won the Trojan War. Men beware, no one is immune to her charms.
Read about the other entries on the list.The Bennet Family
You know what? I’d like to have my holidays with the Bennets because I think poor, homely Mary gets a raw deal! I’d go hang out with them, wear a dress that makes me look pregnant and a severe center-parted hairstyle, and listen attentively while she played the piano for hours and hours and hours. I’d also wisely impart to Kitty and Lydia the virtues of the single life, all the while being thankful for the opportunity to ogle Mr. Darcy to my heart’s delight.
Read about the other entries on the list.Dune, by Frank Herbert
The sci-fi book to end all sci-fi books. That it hasn’t been turned into a series of movies is something of a miracle/curse, depending how you look at it. David Lynch tried to condense Dune’s 500 pages into a movie back in 1984, but as those haunting memories of Sting in metal underpants constantly remind me, it didn’t go so well. The Sci-Fi Channel (SyFy now) did a miniseries in the early 2000s that covered much of Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, but it was small budget and didn’t quite capture the philosophical appeal of Herbert’s writing. Then there’s the ill-fated Jodorowsky movie, which, despite its groundbreaking concepts, planned on ditching most of Dune’s events in favor of an interpreted storyline.
Dune is so perfect for the big screen it hurts. It’s got everything a blockbuster should have, including gigantic otherwordly creatures, family vs. family conflicts, a larger than life villain, a protagonist you can totally identify with, and some great messages about humanity. It’s also got everything a good movie should have, such as complex characters and an incredibly rich mythology to explore. The problem is both length and converting Herbert’s cerebral writing style into something the modern moviegoer can appreciate. Dune movies would be an enormous project requiring a custom-engineered director ghola born from an axlotl tank on Tleilax.
One of the legendary talk-show host's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:Act One by Moss HartRead about the other entries on the list.
Hart rose from grinding poverty in Brooklyn to the heights of Broadway success in writing and directing. Act One is easily the best show — business autobiography — a riveting story that risks promoting the foolish idea that if you chase your dream and never give in, you will succeed. Bull. A few will. Hart did.
At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Somers tagged five detective novels featuring "oddballs who will satisfy your yen for mystery and your yen for surprisingly creative worlds," including:Inherent Vice, by Thomas PynchonRead about the other entries on the list.
Pynchon doesn’t really “do” plots, does he—at least not plots that make any sense in the conventional way. Which makes his decision to write a story structured similarly to a classic private eye story a fascinating one, but it works perfectly. Slacker/stoner detective Doc Sportello is an incredible entry in the category of literary detectives because he’s practically his own client: suffering from memory problems, apparent narcolepsy, and a myriad of other problems staying in sync with the real world, Sportello’s an unreliable narrator, seems aware of the fact, and isn’t troubled by it. While the central mystery is just a way for Pynchon to riff brilliantly for a few hundred pages, there’s a detective story at the core of this sprawling novel—one whose solution will surprise and challenge you. The book also serves as a lament of sorts for a moment in American history when it seemed like the Freaks were winning, which slots right in with the countercultural vibe of most detectives in modern literature.
Read about the other books on the list.Lush Life, by Richard Price
Speaking of The Wire, did you know Richard Price was one of the screenwriters? Known for his sharp, jazzy dialogue and “street cred,” in Lush Life he brings a whole neighborhood to life: the deli owners, deliverymen, and hip young art students who live shoulder to shoulder with the hustlers and gangbangers of New York’s Lower East Side. It’s a volatile mix. When artist Ike Marcus gets stopped on the street one night, he’s too high on life to care. “Not tonight, my man,” he calmly tells his mugger, and a single, fatal bullet is fired. Add a cop with a score to settle and a witness who lies about calling 911, and you’ve got an unforgettable police procedural.
One of five books that changed her, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:GONE WITH THE WINDRead about the other books on the list.
Margaret Mitchell
The spirit of Scarlet O'Hara is very strong. It's a richly detailed portrait of a troubling time in 19th-century history, and it puts a woman's experience at the heart of something that was seen largely to be men's business, that is war and politics. It doesn't hurt that the frocks were also awesome.
Read about the other entries on the list.Astrid Krieger (Firecracker, by David Iserson)
Astrid has money—a lot of it—so she’s never really had trouble getting exactly what she wants. Until someone squeals on her at her fancy boarding school, and she’s forced to attend public school. Suddenly, there are a lot more things Astrid wants, like getting back into her old school, discovering who ratted her out, and getting revenge. To achieve her new goals, Astrid will have to push herself to do some good deeds for the first time in her life. Her methods aren’t exactly orthodox, and her definition of “good” may not match everyone else’s, and I wouldn’t say she evolves into a sweetheart…what was I saying again? Oh, yeah, Astrid’s hilarious.
Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in a World of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott KilmanRead about the other entries on the list.
Recommended by our readers, this investigative book highlights – in the words of the authors – exactly how “American, British, and European policies have conspired to keep Africa hungry and unable to feed itself”. Written by two former American journalists, this read is essential for food activists looking to get clued up on this topical humanitarian issue.
Read about the other entries on the list.If you need to spend more time with women who unexpectedly participate in war, get Laird Hunt’s Neverhome
If you’ve already read [Diane Ackerman's] The Zookeeper’s Wife (or you’re like me and want to read even more war-set historical fiction), grab Hunt’s new novel Neverhome. Set during the American Civil War, the novel follows Ash Thompson, a seemingly average farmer’s wife who leaves her home (and her husband) to disguise herself as a man and fight in the war for the Union. Why does she do it? You have to read the book!
At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Somers tagged five sci-fi novels that explore gender in unexpected and challenging ways, including:The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuinRead about the other entries on the list.
Any discussion of gender in sci-fi generally starts with this classic 1968 novel. First-time readers in the modern day might not see the big deal, but 46 years ago LeGuin’s concept of a race of people who spend the majority of their time as sexless “potentials” and only take on sexual characteristics (either male or female) once a month for breeding purposes—and who are all referred to as “he” regardless of their nature—was kind of mind-blowing. LeGuin has stated that the book began as a thought experiment about what a society would be without gender, and it sometimes has the stiff feel of experiment. To the modern reader the book can seem much less daring—the POV character is a heterosexual male, and while he forms a deep emotional bond with one of the planet’s inhabitants, sexuality is not explored directly in the book—and LeGuin herself later expressed regret that she defaulted to the pronoun “he” instead of “she,” or some other alternative (such as Spivak pronouns).
Dhalgren by Samuel R. DelanyRead about the other entries on the list.
Huge, weird, disorienting, and great fun if you don't mind not knowing exactly what's going on, Dhalgren is the closest thing science fiction has produced to a genuinely experimental novel. All the action is set in and around a Midwestern city that's vanished into a weird, lawless catastrophe that functions as a sort of black hole. Not for everyone, but if you like it, you never forget it. Dhalgren reads like the Sixties felt.
Read about the other picks on Moriarty's list.Accidents of Marriage by Randy Susan Meyers
This is an amazing story about a Boston family and the damaging effects of verbal abuse. Every character is beautifully rendered and the author’s meticulous research (I can’t tell you the subject without spoiling the story) gives it such compelling authenticity. It’s one of the most memorable stories about a marriage I’ve ever read.
Read about the other entries on the list.The Grisha Trilogy, by Leigh Bardugo
Shadow and Bone (book #1 in the Grisha series) falls between paranormal and fantasy on the map. In it, we meet Alina, a powerless orphan in a world whose war against darkness relies on the magical elite. But when Alina reveals an ability even she didn’t know she had, she just might be the only person capable of saving her nation.
Why you should read it: We never get tired of an orphan-turned-powerful-magician plot (Harry Potter, anyone?), and Bardugo’s writing is full of beautifully detailed descriptions and the perfect mix of action and romance.
At Omnivoracious Laura Lippman tagged four favorite books she read this year, including:My Salinger Year by Joanna RakoffRead about the other books on the list.
...I'm not the biggest Salinger fan (I love maybe five of the Nine Stories, find A Catcher in the Rye painfully over-rated) but Rakoff's memoir of her time as an assistant at a literary agency is really about that particular post-college time when one is counting pennies and wondering if life has truly started yet.
LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMENRead about the other books on the list.
Alice Munro
I was living in London trying to reinvent myself as a writer when someone in a feminist group I was in handed me this. I was blown away. Del Jordan is growing up in Jubilee, a small town in rural Ontario. She feels different from other townspeople but sees her future as becoming like them. The moment she chooses to leave, to make another life away from the town and the boyfriend, is revelatory. I empathised fully as a country girl in western NSW who had chosen to leave for university and travel.
Read about the other books on the list.Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
Coraline might be a book for kids, but I still have nightmares about the Other Mother and her button eyes. I used to check under my bed and behind my dresser to make sure her hand wasn’t creeping around. And by “used to” I mean “still pretty often, even though I’m almost 24 and an adult.” Gaiman creates a world that’s creepy and twisted and so horrifying it’s almost beautiful, with the mission of scaring the pants off of his readers. Mission accomplished, Neil.
One of her top ten quiet heroes and heroines, as shared at the Guardian:Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper LeeRead about the other entries on the list.
Atticus leads by example – he doesn’t talk down to his children, or shy away from the challenges that they will face. Instead, he is the very model of integrity, is doing what he thinks is right, and tries to teach Jem and Scout about moral courage. ‘Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.’ A strong, quiet, and truly remarkable man, in this, Michael Gove’s favourite novel.
One of her ten favorite books about books, or about reading, as shared at the Guardian:U and I by Nicholson BakerRead about the other entries on the list.
Baker got there first – or at least early – with U and I, published in 1992. This short, startlingly original book marvelously meditates upon, and conveys, one writer’s compulsive obsession with another: in Baker’s case, John Updike.
Read about the other entries on the list.
What jumps out from Laird Hunt’s Civil War novel Neverhome is the voice of Ash, the protagonist who disguises herself as a man to fight for the Union. Hunt gives a lyrical tone to the horror of the war, and you won’t be able to stop turning the pages as you begin to learn Ash’s secrets and her reasons for leaving behind her husband to fight. And it’s Ash you feel for on her Odyssey-like journey, and it’s her honest, knowing voice that you cling to and relate to amid the destruction.
One of Katz's ten best Mark Twain books, as shared at Publishers Weekly:Roughing It (1872) is Twain’s second book, a comedic romp through the Wild West with hilarious sketches of the author’s misadventures. The book recounts Twain’s flight from Hannibal to the silver mines of Nevada at the outset of the Civil War. We read of his encounters with Mormons and Pony Express riders, gunslingers and stagecoach drivers along his way. He eventually finds himself in San Francisco and the California goldfields, where he strikes pay dirt with the mining camp tall tale, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Twain’s West has been mostly ignored in subsequent popular depictions of the frontier, which concentrate on the bold-faced named outlaws, lawmen, and Indians like Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, and Crazy Horse. This is classic early Twain: rowdy, rambunctious and very funny.Read about the other books on the list.
Read about the other entries on the list.Great, by Sara Benincasa (Based on The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The original: (Like we have to tell you.) In a nutshell, young stockbroker Nick rents a house on Long Island, next to notorious party-thrower and self-made man Gatsby, who is still pining for his now-married love, Daisy, coincidentally Nick’s cousin. Tragedy ensues.
Benincasa’s take: While summering in the Hamptons with her mom, Naomi befriends her Internet-fashion wunderkind neighbor Jacinta, who is really interested in Naomi’s friend Delilah. The gender switching and modern setting provide an entertaining twist and a fresh story without displacing the original in our hearts.
Read about the other entries on the list.Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson's 1883 page-turner was the first full-length book I ever read. I was slow to pick up reading — I struggled until I was 7 — and I still remember the joy I felt when the pieces suddenly clicked into place. All these years later, I retain strangely vivid images of scenes in Stevenson's book.
Read about the other entries on the list.Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
I've had the good fortune to meet President Obama. I believe he's a compassionate man, and my impression of him is compatible with how he describes the flow of his life from his early childhood.
Read about the other entries on the list.Mr. Weasley, Harry Potter
Everyone has a secret-not-so-secret crush on Snape (and some of us can’t help but acknowledge the sexy intensity of a young Tom Riddle), but what about Mr. Weasley? He was raising ginger hell around Hogwarts long before Fred and George ever met a nose-biting teacup. There’s something weirdly charming about his bumbling obsession with the Muggle lifestyle, and I want to blow his mind by taking him on a date to the mall. Escalators? Cash registers? RadioShack? Best date ever.
Read about the other entries on the list.The Social Media Experiment, by Cole Gibsen
Reagan’s experience is your worst nightmare: all her private texts and messages are printed out and displayed in public. Just another reminder that online secrets rarely stay that way, plus a nugget of paranoia now implanted in the back of your mind. ARE YOUR FRIENDS REALLY YOUR FRIENDS? CAN YOU TRUST ANYONE NOT TO FORWARD THAT ONE TOP SECRET TEXT MESSAGE? Probably not, so just avoid it altogether.
Patrick Melrose in Mother’s Milk by Edward St AubynRead about the other fathers on the list.
Edward St Aubyn’s stunning Melrose novels feature possibly the worst fictional father ever committed to the page. David Melrose is a bullying, abusive sociopath. Throughout the five book series his shadow looms large as Patrick struggles to come to terms with what his father inflicted upon him in childhood.
It is perhaps a surprise then that in Mother’s Milk (the fourth book in the series), we find Patrick has become a fairly well adjusted father himself. His two boys are at times intensely irritating and Patrick is by no means an inspirational mentor to them. But he is functional, loving and caring in a book in which the focus shifts slightly from self preservation to protection. His concern for his kids is one of the more touching elements in a series that is better known for bad parenting than good.
Read about the other books on the list.Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney
An excess-soaked read that tackles all-things eighties—New York, cocaine, hedonism, yuppies, even a mannequin obsession—Bright Lights, Big City stands out as one of the decade’s finest novels (and movies). A cautionary tale that reeks of whiskey, romance, and well-timed humor, McInerney’s classic reminds Gen Xers of the very bad good old days.
One of his top ten books about the 1970s, as shared at the Guardian:What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr President? Jimmy Carter, America’s “Malaise”, and the Speech That Should Have Changed the Country by Kevin MattsonRead about the other entries on the list.
“This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning,” President Carter told the US in July 1979. Although Carter’s remarkably honest speech about the need for an enlightened energy policy resonated with the public, the media and the Moral Majority savaged the president for the “malaise” he supposedly believed was afflicting America (he never used that word). A fine book about the brave speech that sounded the death knell of the 70s.
At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Somers tagged five books with an outstanding standalone scene that can be read on its own, out of context, including:Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn: The “Cool Girl” MonologueRead about the other entries on the list.
Very few excerpts in novels have the kind of impact the Cool Girl speech in Gone Girl has had over the last few years. The soliloquy opens like this: “Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl.” Then it builds from there into one of the most ferocious and memorable inner monologues ever committed to paper. It’s rare to see a film adaptation criticized specifically over a single sequence in a novel that isn’t action-oriented, but the recent Gone Girl film caught some flack because people thought they gave short shrift to the Cool Girl speech. If you’re curious what the fuss about Gone Girl is all about, you can read this speech and suffer no spoilers, but know exactly why you want to read the rest of the book.
Read about the other entries on the list.Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon: University of Pittsburgh
Beneath a haze of pot, satire, and American dreaming, Chabon explores how artistic ambitions and youthful promise go awry with age. Expect to fall in love with this novel's triumvirate of wonder boys: a professor entrapped by his interminable second novel, his randy editor, and a student obsessed with Hollywood self-destruction.
One of his ten top underground menaces, as shared at the Guardian:The Morlocks in H.G. Wells’s The Time MachineRead about the other entries on the list.
The Time Machine is one of the most influential sci-fi books ever written. It’s also home to one of its scariest underground villains. The Morlocks are ape-like troglodytes who terrorise the passive Eloi on the surface of the Earth. We find out they are the descendants of human beings who’d been driven underground to work for the Eloi, in a division of labour Marx couldn’t have foreseen. Now, they have the upper hand. When the Time Traveller’s Time Machine goes missing, he is forced to descend into the underworld to get his machine back. Rather him than me.
One of her ten best short story collections, as shared at the Guardian:Interpreter of MaladiesRead about the other entries on the list.
Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)
This debut collection of nine stories won the Pulitzer prize shortly after it was published in 1999 and was named the New Yorker’s debut of the year. The stories, written with what Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times described as “uncommon elegance and poise”, deal with the diversity of Indian-American immigrant experience and the curious alchemy of love and relationships. My particular favourite in this collection is “A Temporary Matter”, a beautiful mediation on grief, love and loss as a couple try to come to terms with the stillbirth of their child.
Read about the other entries on the list.Cadel Pigott (Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks)
Cadel may be a genius when it comes to world domination, but he’s a total moron like the rest of us when it comes to handling social situations. So it’s no surprise that his therapist/only confidant easily convinces him to become a student of the Art of Evil. But is he genuinely sold on this whole criminal mastermind thing, or is he just a lonely 14-year-old looking for love? We’re not sure, but we love watching his twisted mind work either way.
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