Tell me what to read...

Robin Carlton

Robin Carlton

Owner & Candy Keeper
Staff member
...so I just finished Twilight and while I am not as fanatical as all of you weirdoes, it was a good enjoyable read and it made me realize that I miss reading and even with everything else I have going on, it's good to take some time for me and just get lost in a good book.

Soo tell me what else I should read. I think I'd prefer a series but I'm not sure. Anyone read The Other Boelyn Girl et al? I loved the movie and love historical stuff from that time period, but I want a good comfortable read, not a stuffy book that's too over the top intellectual.

I'm pretty open but would love to hear what youve loved and why and maybe a tiny summary of the plot.

Any suggestions?
R
 
Oh man...you're onto my favorite subject now! :D

I've started the Tudor series (The Constant Princess is the first, then The Other Boleyn Girl...now I need to read The Boleyn Inheritance). Both of the books I've read are REALLY good - I knew nothing about that era so it's really interesting to me. The books though are really, really big...and she's still writing more (she's finished with King Henry and is now on to the successors of the crown).

I don't read series very much, so I can't really suggest any others. But I *do* love a good book! :)
 
historical you say? while not a series of any kind, the journals of lewis and clark is quite good.

quite good, indeed.


51SXGZQ6NWL.jpg
 
For books not in a series...there are WAY too many for me to list of ones that I have and want to read...and I have sort of eclectic tastes, lol - I range between young adult to chick-lit, then to fiction, then a memoir or non-fiction - kinda random. :)

I've got a WHOLE big list here, though:
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/276988
 
If you liked Twilight and the whole werewolf/vampire scifi stuff I highly recommend Patrica Briggs "Mercy Thompson" Series. Ms. Briggs is a awesome writer. The 4th book in the series comes out in Feb. They are pretty fasted paced, glued to your seat kinda books. Here is a link to the first book

http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Called-M...bs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231788895&sr=8-3

Carrie Vaughn also has a fabulous werewolf series. The Kitty Norville Series

http://www.amazon.com/Kitty-Midnigh...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231789244&sr=1-2
 
I'm reading Outlander which is the first in a series by Diana Gabaldon about a married war nurse in 1945 who travels back in time to the 1700s in Scotland and falls in love with a Scottish warrior, even though she is in love with her husband from 1945 also.
 
anything by Nicholas Sparks or Jodi Picoult. You cannot go wrong with either. I loved A Walk To Remember and all of Jodi Picoults books are just frickin awesome. The book 19 Minutes is soooo sad though. Its about a boy who is bullied by the popular kids (even his brother if I remember correctly) and it just tears your heart out for all that is done to him
 
amystoffel said:
I suggest reading Twilight again, and try harder this time ;)
Click to expand...

LOL - it was good, really good and I had a hard time putting it down but ya wont see me with an Edward avatar or anything is all I mean :blink: I could get into all the over the top things that were a lil much for me but overall I'd give the series an 8 out of 10 - blasphemy around here I know.

Anyone read the Sookie Stackhouse series? I started reading the first few pages in the Amazon Look Inside This Book thinger and it seemed like it could be good but I'd love to hear from someone whose actually read them.

Keep the suggestions coming and thanks for letting me know about liking the Tudor series Bree :)

R
 
Oh and about that book 19 Minutes. My daughter does not like books like that at all. She loved Harry Potter and Blood and Chocolate so the dramatic type stories are just not her thing but she read the entire thing and she loved it. She and I had a really long talk afterwards about how it ended and what she thought of what he did because of being bullied and what she could do if she saw someone being bullied etc etc. It is a really good book IMO for adults and teenagers. I think it is good for teens because it told partially from a teens characters POV. It also kinda opens up their eyes IMO to how being teased will make someone feel and how sometimes you dont feel like you have anyway out.
 
I read the first Sookie Stackhouse. It was great. pretty fast paced. NOTHING like the show, which is way to bloody and soft p*rn for me. BUt the book was good. NOthing too outrageous. Never ad the chance to pick up another one. But it is one my list of this to read.

Christina Dodd also has a great series called: Darkness Chosen
http://www.christinadodd.com/para_books.php

It was awesome!!!!!!!!!!
 
I agree about Jodi Picoult! I haven't read a book by her that I didn't love! The first one I read by her was My Sister's Keeper and it's one of my favorite books of all time. Her books are usually dramatic and seem "ripped from the headlines" - 19 Minutes came out just before one of the college shootings a couple years ago so she had it pulled off the shelves for awhile.
 
ditzyscrap said:
I agree about Jodi Picoult! I haven't read a book by her that I didn't love! The first one I read by her was My Sister's Keeper and it's one of my favorite books of all time. Her books are usually dramatic and seem "ripped from the headlines" - 19 Minutes came out just before one of the college shootings a couple years ago so she had it pulled off the shelves for awhile.
Click to expand...

Another Jodi Picoult addict here. My Sister's Keeper was also my first one of her and also my favorite. Nineteen Minutes was also great, but hit a little close to home with me as far as the whole Columbine situation goes. The Pact is a great one of hers as well as Perfect Match and The Tenth Circle.

Have you ever read Memoirs of a Geisha? I've heard its incredible and it sounds like its in the same genre that you read a lot.
 
Memoirs Of A Geisha was REALLY good too, lol. I put off reading it because I thought it was one of those "hyped" books that wasn't really as good as everyone made it out to be, but it is also among some of my favorites of all time, lol!
 
My first was The Pact. They all have this incredible moral pull on you. You are usually torn after finishing the story because you think youll feel one way but then when you read it you are like wait a minute Im not so sure. Like in My Sisters Keeper....I thought through the whole book that the sister was being incredibly selfish then it turns out she was really just trying to do what her sister wanted all along and the twist at the end had me in tears. It was just so incredibly sad that after all they had been through it ended the way it did. (trust me you will not be able to put it down if you got this book It is amazing!!)
 
two more books I read that I really liked:

Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands

and

To Kill A Mockingbird

I read all the stories my daughter is assigned for school after she finishes them. These are both stories she was assigned and they were both pretty good
 
Oh! I LOVE Jodi Picoult. There have only been a couple of hers that weren't just incredible (IMO). I love how you never quite know how the books will end with her.

Jenny, I also love love loved Memoirs of a Geisha. It's a BEAUTIFUL story.

Danielle Steel has a nice new fluffy one out right now called A Good Woman. It takes place around/during WWI and starts off with the main character experiencing a tragic loss from the Titanic. It then goes through her life (probably 20 years or so) and talks of her various struggles and how she overcomes them.

One of my favorite series is by Fern Michaels. There are I think 10 books in the series? It's really like 3 shorter series all connected together. It's the Texas/Vegas/Kentucky series and it's about a family (3 extended families that are all connected) and the life of of their matriarch. Each mini series starts with the main female as a young lady and goes through her entire lifetime. It's been years since I've read it, but I was just thinking that I need to get them out and read them again.
 
The Sookie Stackhouse series is a very enjoyable read.

For just sheer fun & entertainment Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum series is wonderful. (One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, etc)

Sharon Kay Penman's books are excellent and more historically accurate than Phillipa Gregory's (which are still really good reads)

Another good series that is historically based is by Lauren Wiilig. The first is the Secret History of the Pink Carnation. I think there are 5 so far. They run parallel stories about a modern woman researching spies during the Napoleonic wars and the adventures of the spies themselves.
 
Oh, I just thought of another one! Lizzy's War (can't remember the author) is about a SAHM who's husband goes off to war (Vietnam, I think?) and gets injured and comes home and life is just different for their family. Its really good.

If you haven't read the Diary of Anne Frank, you of course need to read it. And anything by Corrie tenBoom. My mom is a big historical reader and just LOVES her stuff (its all autobiographical, I believe).
 
Rae's World said:
Christina Dodd also has a great series called: Darkness Chosen
http://www.christinadodd.com/para_books.php
Click to expand...

This series sounds really good, I just added it to my to read list! I haven't read the Sookie Stackhouse books yet but I've heard they are better than the TV series.

I read mostly paranormal series and some historical romance. Here a some of the series I've read in the last few months, some have just a few books and others have quite a few -

Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward
Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon
House of Night series by PC Cast
Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
Lords of the Underworld series by Gena Showalter
Midnight Breed series by Lara Adrian
Wicked Lovely & Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr
Wings in the Night/Twilight series by Maggie Shayne
Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz
Argeneau series by Lynsay Sands
 
I love chick books. :) Anything by Danielle Steel is great. I recently discovered Kristin Billerbeck (kind of like a chick lit with a Christian spin...not preachy at all, but doesn't have the love scenes like Danielle Steel). She has 2 series that I've finished in the last couple of weeks:

Spa Girls Series (3 books)
Ashley Stockingdale Series

They're easy, light reads and move quickly. Have worked for me lately when I need a distraction. :)
 
Robin my best friend and I are A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D to the Sookie Stackhouse series. More fun than the show (True Blood), and you like Sookie's character a whole lot more. They're literally book crack! :thumbup: I've read up to book 7 and am waiting for her to finish eight and hand it over. :) And it's not all about vampires, which makes it even more fun. Just a good series with really well drawn characters that you can identify with.
 
Love all the insight guys! THanks so much for all the tips and suggestions!

Shawna, I saw the House of Night series last night when I was browsing at Amazon and it looked like it could be good - was it? I hesitated because it said young adult which is part of what I had trouble with in Twilight, sometimes it was a little TOO teen, so I'd love to hear what you thought there.

I'm definitely interested in reading MORE mature than less I think. I do like boobs and run around without pants afterall :D

R
 
Jennifer said:
I love chick books. :) Anything by Danielle Steel is great. I recently discovered Kristin Billerbeck (kind of like a chick lit with a Christian spin...not preachy at all, but doesn't have the love scenes like Danielle Steel). She has 2 series that I've finished in the last couple of weeks:

Spa Girls Series (3 books)
Ashley Stockingdale Series

They're easy, light reads and move quickly. Have worked for me lately when I need a distraction. :)
Click to expand...

I LOVE the Spa Girls series! I read a TON of christian chick-lit so if you ever need some suggestions, let me know!
 
OK, as a lifelong bookworm, lit major, and teacher/librarian, I'm warning you now this list could get long!

Another Jodi Picoult fan LOL...Plain Truth and The Pact are awesome IMO.

What else...I love Stephen White's Alan Gregory series (suspense/crime with some humor thrown in)...Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series started out wonderful...the last ones have been ok, but not top notch IMO.

The Egg & I, The Plague & I, and Onions in the Stew by Betty McDonald...I loved these books! They are basically non-fiction accounts of the author's life in the first part of the 20th century...funny and eye-opening to say the least.

Home Before Morning by Lynda van DeVanter, if you can find a copy, is an excellent autobiography of an Army nurse in Vietnam.

Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson is a great telling of the story of Cynthia Ann Parker. It's a great read if you like historicals, Native American, or just a good romance for that matter. It's been one of my favorite novels since I read it in 10th grade.

Edge of Eternity by Randy Alcorn is one of my absolute favorite all-time books...can't even describe it...it's very DIFFERENT to say the least.

The Hidden Hand by E.D.E.N. Southworth is a forgotten gem of American lit...the best way for me to describe it...maybe if Huck Finn had been a girl...LOL (that's how someone put it in my lit class)

finally...not exactly a favorite, but kind of fun...
A Page out of Life by Kathleen Reid...this is a SCRAPBOOKING novel about a group of women and their trials and tribulations...it even mentions digi LOL!
 
It's not historical, but the Women's Murder Club books by James Patterson are a series and I've really enjoyed them.
 
Laura_A said:
It's not historical, but the Women's Murder Club books by James Patterson are a series and I've really enjoyed them.
Click to expand...

Ohhh I read Kiss The Girls way back when before it was a movie and it was really good. I actually love true crime books too now that I think of it. Green River Killer and Zodiac were fascinating to me.
 
I'm a huge Patterson fan as well so the Women's Murder Club or any of the Alex Cross Series too (Kiss the Girls)...even his stand alone books are terrific - The Quickie and the Lifeguard were two of my favorites.

Another new Picoult fan here too - just picked up Change of Heart at the libary and as soon as I'm doing reading my book club book - The Shack - I'll get started on that. I've read My Sister's keeper, 19 minutes, Perfect Match and Vanishing Acts - all of which were awesome!

One last suggestion - The Kite Runner...50 pages in, I thought I hated it and would never make it through (another book club item for me), but I got sucked in and thought it was an incredible book...

I love hearing everyone's suggestions....
 
Robin Carlton said:
Shawna, I saw the House of Night series last night when I was browsing at Amazon and it looked like it could be good - was it? I hesitated because it said young adult which is part of what I had trouble with in Twilight, sometimes it was a little TOO teen, so I'd love to hear what you thought there.
Click to expand...

I really liked the books & didn't think they were too teen, they were the first books I read after finishing the Twilight books. There is a bit of a love triangle between the main character and some of the males in the story so I thought that made it a bit more adult without having a bunch of sex scenes like in a more mature/adult book. They are written by a mother/daughter team and the daughter is college age and she's the one that adds in the younger aspects of the books. The 5th book comes out at the beginning of March and I've got it on my to read list.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2026 XenForo Ltd.
Back
Top