A Book List for a Friend

I received this comment from my friend, David. I grew up with David. He has an amazing memory for song lyrics. I remember us as young kids in his backyard going down the slide while he sang "Surfin' USA" by the Beach Boys.

This is what he wrote:

Hey E!

Three years ago, I gave up soda for a year.
Two years ago, I gave up ice cream for a year.
Last year, I gave up chocolate and chips for a year.
This coming year, I decided to give up giving up stuff and add something.

I have decided to read one book a month for 2010 (I don't read unless absolutely necessary like for a class or something...and even then I don't read the whole thing.) Out of the books you've read, which do you think I'd like?

--David

Yay! I love it when people decide to read more. And now he can drink soda AND eat ice cream, chocolate, and chips while reading.

My response:

Hi David,

Here are my recommendations. I kept a couple of things in mind while choosing the books - since you're not a big fan of reading, I chose books that are pretty easy, accessible, and fun. Also, to keep you on track for one book per month, I chose books that aren't that long. Click on each title for my review and a description of the book. Let me know how it goes.

My Favorite Young Adult/Kid Books:
-Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
-Kimchi and Calamari by Rose Kent
-Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Books About Food:
-The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Finn
-Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (this one is a bit longer)
-How Starbucks Saved My Life by Michael Gates Gill

Fiction:
-The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
-The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
-Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Non-Fiction:
-Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Seeking Peace by Mary Pipher

I've mentioned this before on this blog: When a book I read is either really good or really bad, I use very few words and just tell you that directly.

When a book is bad, it's not worth my time to describe it all to you. It's enough to tell you to: Don't read this book.

When a book is really good, sometimes there are no words to even describe how good it really is, you just need to find out for yourself. So I write: Read this book.


This is a READ THIS BOOK post.

This book will most likely make it onto my Top Ten Good Reads of 2009.

A quote:

"...adults who have never suffered are shallow and well, insufferable.
Because they haven't experienced much pain, they haven't felt motivated to truly explore themselves and their relationships to the world." --Mary Pipher

Three books by Richard Paul Evans

Some days it's nice to curl up with a blanket (or cat) and read a book all the way through. Let me show you what happened.

I picked this one up from the library and boom! I was hooked. I read the whole book in a 24-hour period.

It's not literature. It's just easy reading.

I went to the library and picked up some more by the same author.

Boom, I read through this one.

I read this one, too.

But then I got to this one. I read 1/4 of it and closed it. I placed it in my "To return to Library" bag.

I had had enough. Enough of the predictable characters and predictable storyline. Enough of Richard Paul Evans' books.

But for the time that it lasted, it was fun.

Please Excuse My Daughter by Julie Klam

This is a memoir about the author's privileged life growing up in New York as the daughter of a mom who cared more about shopping and gossip than her daughter's education.

Once she reaches adulthood, she is faced with the real problems that come along with...well, adulthood.

I had little, ah, make that NO sympathy for the author - she complains about her three week honeymoon to Italy, comparing it to a POW's experience in Vietnam. Really?

The ending and what the author learns about herself is mildly redeeming, but just mildly so.

She's a good writer, but the complaining became rather tiresome.

Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

This is a re-read. You can read my review from 2007 here.

I just had a feeling that I needed to read this book again.

A quote I jotted down:

"What made any of us think that the place we are trying to reach is far, far ahead of us somewhere and that the only way to get there is to run until we drop?"

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Thank you!

Thank you to Kjersti for giving my blog a "Super Cute" award! I am honored!

And thanks to you all who read my blog. I hope I've recommended some good books and saved you from some bad ones.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I only blog about books that I've completed. But you should know that for every four or five books that I review here, there is at least one book that I tried to read and decided not to finish. It's a good thing I borrow books from the library instead of buying them.

How do I decide if I'm going to finish a book? As a general rule, I read the first 50 pages before I decide. And at any point, I stop reading if any of the following are true:

-I don't look forward to reading the book.
-I keep checking to see how many pages are left.
-The author doesn't use quotation marks when people are speaking.


This is a book that I didn't finish. I was so looking forward to reading it because I'm a Barbara Kingsolver fan. It was flat and not at all up to what I expect from Kingsolver. It really didn't even seem like it was Kingsolver's writing.

So after reading 250 of the 500 pages (I was really waiting for it to get better!), I put it down and returned it to the library. I pre-ordered it to give to my sister as a birthday present, but the book was so terrible that I unwrapped it, and returned it to Amazon.

All I can say about this book is: What happened, Barbara???