Other People's Book Lists

Recently, I sent a note on Facebook, asking some of my reading friends what they have on their short stacks for summer. Since I get some of my best recommendations from others, I thought I'd share them. I'd love to hear from others.

Amber says she plans to read a couple I just finished--The Help and Olive Kitteridge (which won the Pulitzer Prize.) She also plans to read The Beautiful Ache (McLeroy) and A Mad Desire to Dance (Wiesel).

Sandy is reading The Order of Things (Lynne Hinton) and the second, third, and fourth books in the Twilight series (to be able to converse with her friends who are reading them).

The other books she's reading, all nonfiction, share a common theme: they are all books on writing or language with an interesting twist:

Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins (Theodore M. Bernstein)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Lynne Truss)
Spunk & Bite (Arthur Plotnik)
The Elephants of Style (Bill Walsh)
Woe Is I (Patricia T. O'Conner)
Old Friend from Far Away (Natalie Goldberg--who also wrote a favorite, Writing Down the Bones).

Anthony says he plans to read Spenser's Fairie Queene, and he doesn't know that he'll get any further.

Carol recommended The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman), although she doesn't usually read a lot of YA fiction.

Kathy shared the next few on her book club list. They just read Loving Frank then took a road trip to visit the Rosenbaum house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Florence, AL (my hometown).

As for me, the summer's just beginning. I'm finishing Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book and plan to start A Reliable Wife soon. Then I may start Woods Burner, a novel based on the time Henry David Thoreau accidentally burned a stand of woods (not exactly his best environmental moment, eh?)

Other People's Book Lists