The Books List, Part Three

20 Books I Would Recommend Reading, 5 Books I Wouldn't, and 50 from my Reading List

Time for another Books List post! The weather has finally gotten warm, and you can now go read on the porch or in a comfy hammock. Enjoy!

My likes/loves: These are books that entertained me, moved me, taught me things, made me think, inspired me, and that I would heartily recommend. They are not ranked – they are merely in the order in which I read them.

1. Girl with a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier
2. The Red Tent – Anita Diamant (you will probably cry, really hard. But it's good.)
3. Kiss the Girls – James Patterson
4. The Between – Tananarive Due
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
6. Owls Aren't Wise and Bats Aren't Blind: A Naturalist Debunks Our Favorite Fallacies about Wildlife – Warner Shedd
7. Lullaby – Chuck Palahniuk
8. Diary: A Novel – Chuck Palahniuk (this is a REALLY creepy story. Must like horror.)
9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Immortal – Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
10. It's a Dirty Job – Katy Terrega
11. The Ten Trusts – Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff
12. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
13. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
14. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide – Kay Redfield Jamison
15. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling
16. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim – David Sedaris
17. Stealing Faces – Michael Prescott
18. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling
19. House of Sand and Fog – Andre Dubus III
20. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

My meh/yuck list: Did not find these appealing for any number of reasons – some were boring; some had an interesting subject but did not do it justice; some were flat-out terrible. All simply left me cold in some way. Although I am likely to read multiple books by authors I like (you will see a lot of Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Margaret Atwood, Charles de Lint and Toni Morrison), I do not excuse those authors when they write a book I didn't like, so they might just show up here, as well.

1. As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
2. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
3. The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susanna – Stephen King
4. We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
5. Daddy's Little Girl – Mary Higgins Clark

My Reading List: these are books I haven't read yet, so I don't have a reaction for you. However, I could semi-recommend them, based on the reasons they made it onto my list:

1. They were on one of those “100 Greatest Books” lists;
2. They are other books written by authors I really enjoy; or
3. I read a review, and it sounded like something I'd like.

#1 can be a bit hit-or-miss; #2 is almost (but not always) foolproof for me (but maybe not for you), and #3 usually works out pretty well, as it's a combination of the first two. As always, your results may vary, but consider them suggestions. These may tend to come in chunks of stuff by author (apologies). There are literally over 1400 books currently on my reading list (I'm stupidly ambitious), so this is a very small chunk.

1. The Ivory and the Horn – Charles de Lint
2. Jack of Kinrowan - Charles de Lint
3. Moonheart - Charles de Lint
4. Moonlight and Vines - Charles de Lint
5. Tapping the Dream Tree - Charles de Lint
6. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
7. One Lonely Night – Mickey Spillane
8. On the Beach – Nevil Shute
9. Starship Troopers – Robert Heinlein
10. The Door into Summer – Robert Heinlein
11. The Puppet Masters – Robert Heinlein
12. Double Star – Robert Heinlein
13. Citizen of the Galaxy – Robert Heinlein
14. The Wood Wife – Terri Windling
15. Arrowsmith – Sinclair Lewis
16. Guilty Pleasures – Laurell Hamilton
17. V – Thomas Pynchon
18. Tristam Shandy – Laurence Sterne
19. Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
20. Buddenbrooks- Thomas Mann
21. Le Pere Goriot – Honore de Balzac
22. The Tin Drum – Gunter Grass
23. Molly/Malone Dies/The Unnamable (trilogy) – Samuel Beckett
24. Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
25. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
26. Dream of the Red Chamber – Cao Xueqin
27. The Trial – Franz Kafka
28. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
29. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
30. Animal Talk – Tim Friend
31. Arranged Marriage – Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
32. Dragonfly in Amber – Diana Gabaldon
33. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – Anita Loos
34. Life among the Surrealists – Matthew Josephson
35. Small Town – Lawrence Block
36. Novel History – Ed. by Mark C. Carnes
37. The Story behind the Story – Ed. by Turchi and Barrett
38. Mortification: Writer's Stories of Their Public Shame – Ed. by Robin Robertson
39. Lapsing into a Comma – Bill Walsh
40. The Elephants of Style – Bill Walsh
41. Empire Falls – Richard Russo
42. Life of Pi – Yann Martel (I've seen the movie and liked it)
43. Peace Like a River – Leif Enger
44. The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd
45. Indistinguishable from Magic – Robert L. Forward
46. The Demon-Haunted World – Carl Sagan
47. Bellwether – Connie Willis
48. Neuromancer – William Gibson
49. Fairyland – Paul J. McAuley
50. A Map of the World – Jane Hamilton

That's all for now; hope you find these lists useful as you think about things you might like to read.

The other lists:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-books-list-part-one.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-books-list-part-two.html

Some actual book reviews:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/review-of-honeymooners-cautionary-tale.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-of-almost-green-how-i-saved-16th.html