Those of you who know me know that I am a voracious reader. (Those of you who don’t know me just found out.) Every night for many years I have spent my last waking hour in bed reading some book or another. (If the book is too interesting, I spend a few of my last waking hours in bed… and often end up short on sleep as a result.) I enjoy many genres, but find myself most drawn to history, theology, science fiction (but not the fantasy branch of sci-fi so much), and then military/adventure novels. I was big into Tom Clancy as a kid, and branched out to similar authors when Clancy’s pen dried up.
I average 1 or 2 books per week, depending on how busy my week is. Lately, though, I have become weary of my regular diet of mindless adventure. Much of it is tired retreads. I feel like I’m wasting my time. Back at the DG2006 conference I bought G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. But it, too, will soon join the ranks of books I’ve already read, and I’ll be looking for something else.
So here’s the deal. Do you have any books to recommend that I read? They could be fiction, non-fiction, whatever. Just something you think I’d enjoy or benefit from. Leave a comment with the name and author of the book. In return, I will find them at the local library, read them, and then post my thoughts about the book. Sound like a plan?
Everybody Poops. It’s a classic.
I’m not much of a reader, but I really got into “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis.
Lately I’ve been on a classics kick. I’ve always like suspense/mystery type novels and I’ve really gotten into reading Agatha Christie novels. The way she writes feels like I’m savoring a mental cup of coffee!
How are you with racy fiction?
What are you thinking? I’ll read just about anything.
Read Gary Shteyngart’s The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Great absurdist immigrant fiction.
i really like Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. not sure if you are familiar with some of his stuff (he did the NOOMA videos). Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible
Church in Grandville, Michigan. i also endorse the Agatha Christie books…And Then There Were None (original title: 10 Little Indians) is a classic of hers. Really like John Grisham’s books: Runaway Jury (great movie too), Street Lawyer, and there are many more that he wrote…hope you find something good to read…
OK, so here’s the list so far:
The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)
And Then There Were None (Christie)
The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (Shteyngart)
Velvet Elvis (Bell)
I’ve never read any of Agatha Christie’s stuff, so this is a good time to start. I have a copy of Screwtape at home that I haven’t read since college, so I’ll pull it out. I’ll hit the library reservation web page for the others.
Oh, and Heather, as for Grisham? Yeah, good stuff. I own paperbacks of most of ‘em, and I’ve definitely read them all. Good choice.
Keep the recommendations coming, folks! I know I have more than 4 readers.
And Then There Were None is a great Christie Novel. I’m a huge, huge fan of Miss Marple. My favorite Marple book is The Murder at the Vicarage. It’s one of her first books starring Miss Marple.
Here’s an excerpt from the Christie website:
The murder of Colonel Protheroe is a shock to everyone in St. Mary Mead, though hardly an unpleasant one. Now the vicar, who had declared that killing the detested Protheroe would be a service to the world, as well as his young and flirtatious wife, could be considered suspects. And what about the faithless Mrs. Protheroe, or her lover, the young artist Lawrence Redding? Jane Marple is at her shrewdest in this delightfully intricate mystery.
i recommend “hey nostradamus” by douglas coupland, the pendragon cycle by steven lawhead (5 books of arthurian fiction), “when i don’t desire God” by john piper (my current read), and “a pilgrim at tinker creek” by annie dillard.
that’s all i got…happy page turning my friend.
I created a static page to keep track of all of these recommendations. I’ll try to keep it updated as I read through all these books. There is a link to that page on the sidebar.
Thanks everybody!
Chris, if you like history at all you can’t go wrong with Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick.
Basically about the greatest exploratory expedition the U.S. ever undertook supplying the basis for what is now the Smithsonian. It sounds boring but I couldn’t put it down once I got through the first third of the book.
If you like philosophy The Closing of the American Mind by Bloom is very good. Not sure if that’s a lite- read- before- bedtme book though.
Shame on you if you haven’t sucked up all of Michener’s stuff yet. haha
And anything by Velikovsky or Hawking is at least thought provoking in the science dept.
-Cyn
[...] It’s taken me far too long, but I have finally completed the second book on my user-suggested reading list: The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart. Thanks to Geof for the recommendation. [...]
[...] On to a book recommended by Nate Downey: Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead, which is book one of five books in Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle. [...]