Sunday 20 June 2010

What to read next?


I have added a new page to the blog titled 'TBR Pile'. After counting and listing all the books which I physically own but have not yet read I was astounded to realise the number came to 52. I am sure this will seem like a stupidly small number to some of you book addicts out there but that's quite a lot for me.

So just for fun, during the month of July I thought I would read books from the list suggested by you guys. All I ask is that you look down my TBR list and see if there are any books which you would like me to read during July. I will read them in order of the suggestions as they come in. I normally read on average of seven books a month depending on thickness of course.

I look forward to seeing what people suggest!

Posted by Jess

20 comments:

  1. my reccomendation from the list is undoubtedly The Great Gatsby.

    honourable mentions go to Lewis Carroll, because of the shared surname (even though he was actually called Dodgson, or something) and Cloud Atlas, because I'll be reading that soon too.

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  2. Ooohh... You have a lot of good books in there! Ones that I would recommend... East of Eden, Speak, The White Tiger... I think I'll stop at three for now. :)

    - Rebecca

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  3. Oh, oh, oh, you *must* read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. You do have to come at it with a child's mind, though, by which I mean that you have to give up a lot of ideas about narrative arc and things like that. But once you read it, you'll start seeing Alice references everywhere!

    Perfume is a gorgeous and horrifying read. It's definitely one of those that requires you to get lost in the language. There's a rather strange (well, to my mind) shift between the style of the first and second parts, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, truth be told, I thought the movie was quite a good rendition (well, and it had Alan Rickman *g*)

    IMHO Interpretation of a Murder is a decent book, though not a fantastic one, but it should definitely be read in the winter. I would put it lower down on the list.

    Have fun!

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  4. Shadow of the Wind! It's one of my favorite books. I'm ready the prequel now (The Angel's Game) and it's proving to be equally as good.

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  5. The House of the Mosque by Kahlar Abdolah. I asked a Dutch book blogger what her favorite books by Dutch authors were and this was one of them. I'd be interested to see what you think of it! I want to read it!

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  6. Thanks for all your suggestions so far! I think I have quite a good month ahead of me. So far the list is.....

    The Great Gatsby (I loved LOVED tender is the night so will look forward to this)
    Speak (thats out of the suggestions made by Readerly Person)
    Alice in Wonderland
    Shadow of the Wind
    House of the Mosque

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  7. You have some great books on the list and some of them are also on my TBR.

    My recommendation is The Help - Kathryn Stockett

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  8. I would suggest, in this order:

    The Great Gatsby (I'll re-read in July)
    Shadow of the Wind
    The Little Stranger

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  9. Someone mentioned it above, but East of Eden is my suggestion. Can we do procrastination nominees? (I am assuming the answer is yes). And the winner for that is Let the Great World Spin (reading it right now and having a difficult time pushing myself to read it).

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  10. The Great Gatsby and The World According to Garp - for very different reasons of course. Like that new page by the way. Allows the nosy among us to play voyeur into your reading life, and helps keep you organized. Very clever!

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  11. The shadow of the wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

    Enough said.

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  12. I vote for Beloved coz it's one of my all-time favorite books and for The White Tiger coz I'm yet to read it myself.

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  13. I notice several people mention Shadow Of The Wind, a book I hated but everyone else seems to love. No, my recommendation would have to be The Boy in the Blue Striped Pyjamas - beautifully written, it will have you in tears by the end.I look forward to reading what you think of it.

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  14. Looks like you have your next month of reading cut out for you already. But, I would highly recommend The White Tiger and The World According to Garp. Both brilliant books. There are a bunch on your list I've been wanting to read as well.

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  15. It sounds like you have your list all set, but I just have to give my thumbs up the The Great Gatsby as well. One of my top five favorites.

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  16. You have so many fantastic books on your TBR pile that I'm sure you won't go wrong, whatever you choose. However, I would highly recommend, The shadow of the wind and We need to talk about Kevin.

    There are at least 20 others on the list that are fantastic, but those are two of my all time favorites. Happy reading!

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  17. I agree with the others - so many wonderful books. You can't really go wrong. I recommend picking at random - every other book will be gold!!

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  18. the ones I've read are Eden, Gatsby, Scarlett Letter, Alice and Coraline. Coraline is the only one I read as an adult so it has been over 20 years since I read the others-- I liked them all in different ways but the one that really knocked my socks off was East of Eden. If June is full, add it to July's list. :o)

    (Alice is my least fave, btw)

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  19. My first pick would be East of Eden. But since no one mentioned it, I'll choose The Book of Lost Things. I really liked it. It's fairly dark and spins off of quite a few fairytales. Then next would be All the Pretty Horses. Lovely language in that one. Happy reading!

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  20. I haven't read a lot of these, but my recommendation would be:
    Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

    The movie adaptation is supposed to come out sometime soon, if you're someone who likes to read the book before seeing the film.

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