Book Recommendations, please

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banslug

Cathlete
I'm in charge of a Book Club that I started 4+ years ago, and our next meeting is tomorrow night. It's my turn to choose our next book. Any Suggestions???

I'd like to pick something that will hold our interest all the way thru to the end. Mystery? No sci-fi. Historical Fiction is ALWAYS a big hit with the group!

I thought I'd share the complete list of books that we've read so far:
Icy Sparks, Gwyn Rubio
On A Wild Night, Stephanie Laurens
We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole, Jerri Nielsen
One Door Away From Heaven, Dean Koontz
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
Blessings, Anna Quindlen
Tara Road, Maeve Binchy
Let’s Roll! Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage, Lisa Beamer
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
Charm School, Nelson Demille
Midnight in Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt
Hundred Secret Senses, Amy Tan
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
A Christmas Present
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
The Nanny Diaries, Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, Jerome R. Corsi, John E. O'Neill
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Mother of Pearl,Melinda Haynes
The Art of Mending, Elizabeth Berg
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Lucia Graves
My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
The other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson
The Emporer of Ocean Park, Stephen L Carter
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
A Tree Grows in Brookly, Betty Smith
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
In the Face of Jinn, Cheryl Howard Crew
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafasi
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

Gayle
 
Hi Gayle. Here are some books that most people in our book club enjoyed and that we had great conversations about.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Midwives - Chris Bohjalian

Hope this helps you out some.

Karin

PS - Thanks for your list. I am going to suggest some of these books the next time I have to pick.
 
I can vouch for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. That is a great book!

You can't go wrong with Jane Austen.

If you like mysteries, try a Wilkie Collins novel. The Woman in White is a great read.
 
Karin-THANK YOU! I have been compiling a list as well, and adding to it everytime someone from these boards recommends a book! That list if very long! LOL. I've actually been seriously thinking about Snow Flower nad The Secret Fan for some time now! Thank you! I'll let you know what I decide on!

Gayle
 
If you like historical fiction, have you read anything by Margaret George? She is amazing. Her books are: The autobiorgophy of King Henry the 8th, Memours of Cleopatra, Queen Mary of Scotland and the Isles, Helen of Troy and one on Mary Magdeline. If you need any other history or historical fiction recomendations just let me know as it is all i read... and i read a lot! Also A book called a woman in Berlin is amazing, not fiction.. but a diary a women kept while the Russians first entered Berlin. A story every woman should read as it maked you see how luck we are to live in the time and place we do. Also lets you know just how strong we are...

Enjoy. B
 
Oh, B...thank you too! I just checked out some of the ones you listed and am interested in Memoirs of Cleopatra and A Woman in Berlin.

MAN! How am I going to decide? LOL

Gayle
 
Yes, Wilkie Collins is great. I recomend The Moonstone over the Women in White, but he's good in either book so, enjoy!!!!

Clare
 
I would recommend either The Virgin's Lover or Birth of Venus. They're both historical fiction and very well written...

I wish I could interest myself in some fiction, sigh. I keep starting books and tossing them aside, ugh.

Marie
 
>Yes, Wilkie Collins is great. I recomend The Moonstone over
>the Women in White, but he's good in either book so,
>enjoy!!!!
>
>Clare

Ooh, Clare, I haven't read Moonstone. Maybe I'll pick it up. I saw a BBC production of The Woman in White and liked it so much that I bought the book. The book was better, but the BBC always does such a great job on the TV versions of British Lit. Frankly, I hadn't heard of Wilkie Collins before I saw the TV show:7, but I'm sure I glad I did!

Marie, I know what you mean. I don't read a lot of fiction, but most of what I read is British. Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde are 2 of my faves, along with...oh, what's her name...she wrote Middlemarch under a pseudonym...George Eliot!! Give those a shot.
 
Hi!
My book club just did The Tender Bar_ by J.R. moehringer it is non-fiction and we all pretty much enjoyed it. Next month is Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.
Other suggestions:
The Glass Castle by Janette Walls
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby ( we did that one last month)
Empire Falls
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Brick Lane
any historical fiction by Phillipa Gregory she did the Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen's Fool, numerous others they are always a good read.
Have Fun
Jen
 
HI Gayle,
I saw your post and just had to reply. I just finished a WONDEFFUL Historical Fiction book today that I found on a website for Book Clubs. The name of it is "One Thousand White Women: the Journal of May Dodd" by Jim Fergus.

It takes place in the 1870's when our government got "white women" to agree to live among the Native Americans to attempt to assimalate them to the "white man" way of living. The book is the journal entries of one of the women who agreed to live among the "savages'. I found it to be very interesting and a wonderful read. I am facinated by this part of our history which I was unaware of. When I saw you said that Historical Fiction was popular with you all I had to reply since I JUST finished the book. I loved it!

Have fun with whatever you decide and thanks for the titles you listed!

Becca;-) :)
 
The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates
A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve

Both are fiction with side stories based on historical events. The Falls is very long, I don't know what your time constraints are, but both were very good.

And now, because of this thread, I will be going to the bookstore today!

Lisa
 
I am NOT a fan of mass market fiction so take this with a grain of salt...hwoever the book discussion group I was leading really enjoyed this non fiction book by Laura McDOnald entitled "Curse of the Narrows"
 
I loved "Shadow of the Wind." (such a horrible title, though.) If they liked that, try something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" or "Love in the Time of Cholera."

"City of Falling Angels" by John Berendt is really good, too. It's about Venice when the opera house burned down a few years ago (note to self: never go anywhere at the same time that Berendt is visiting/or planning to visit; something bad always seems to happen!)

If they liked Jane Eyre, you might like "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys, which is about Bertha (the first Mrs. Rochester).

Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" is a good contrast to "Da Vinci Code."

"Emma" by Jane Austin
"East of Eden" by Steinbeck
"Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver
"The Education of Little Tree" by Forrest Carter
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
"The Portable Dorothy Parker" (short stories, essays, poems, reviews, etc.)
"American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser (might want to suggest watching the movie version,"A Place in the Sun," with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift")
"Washington Square" by Henry James ("The Heiress" with Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Sir Ralph Richardsonis a great movie interpretation of this book")

Happy reading!
 
THANK YOU to everybody for your suggestions! I took a trip to Barnes & Noble yesterday and spent over 90 minutes there, pulling books that each of you listed! LOL

First, I was really leaning towards The Memoirs of Cleopatra. Until the guy pulled it off the shelf! It is 964 PAGES! LOL. My friends would laugh at me if I made them read that one. We meet every 6 weeks...we would need to extend the deadline for this book by 6 MONTHS! LOL

Then, I sat and read a chapter of about 10 books, many of which you all listed above. I finally decided on Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. It was a very hard decision, but I think the group is really going to love this! We meet tonight, and I'm excited to make my announcement!

THANKS AGAIN!

Gayle
 
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

I just got through with that one. Thanks for the list though. Now I have some suggested readings I'm going to look into!

Lisa
 
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