Book Recommendations?

Miss.SunFlower

New member
Read a GREAT book recently? Tell us about it!!!!!!

What's it about?
What did you like about it?
What's the best part?
Why do you think we should give it a try?

Hope to hear about all sorts of interesting reading material from y'all! :D
 
That's a broad net. Are you asking for book recommendations for personal enjoyment? Devotional content? Education?

I just finished (again) a wonderful devotional book called The Gift of Faith by Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer. It's quite a work, and causes one to deeply self-examine one's heart. I finished it once then turned right around and went through it again, because it's a meditative sort of book. I'm sure I'll be going through it periodically for the rest of my life.

I haven't read any good recreational books lately, but I'm looking for one.
 
Anything, everything... this thread isn't just for ME, but for any TDL-er who wants to find some reading. So any kind of book is welcome, as long as YOU enjoyed it and wish to tell others about it. :)
 
I recommned The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It's one of my favourite books ever.
It's about a girl named Liesel growing up in Nazi germany, who steals books. I can't write a summary that does it justice, but it's amazing. (bring kleenex, though)
 
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu. Read it. It's an amazing true story about the British fooling the Germans into moving many of their troops away from where the British planned to attack during World War 2. It's written by the man who masterminded the operation. The detail they put into their plans is stunning. The movie's very good, too.
 
If you want the expanded version of that story, try A Bodyguard of Lies, the story of the disinformation campaign during WWII to delude the Axis about the Allies true intentions. The Man Who Never Was was only one incident in that effort.
 
Oh, good Let a librarian take a whack at it :D *clears throat*
-The Chronicles of Narnia (duh!)
-Mere Christianity
-War and Peace
-The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
-The first 7 Oz books (out of 40)
-The Lord of the Rings
-Pocket Full of Rye
-20,000 Leagues under the Sea
-Anything by Jack London
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the looking Glass : and What Alice found There.
-Treasure Island
-Native Son
-Frankenstein
-Anything by Shakespeare

Ok, I'm taking a break and let the others chime in...
 
If you want the expanded version of that story, try A Bodyguard of Lies, the story of the disinformation campaign during WWII to delude the Axis about the Allies true intentions. The Man Who Never Was was only one incident in that effort.

Yes, I know. Perhaps I should have specified that. That sounds interesting. I'll check it out.
 
I'll throw in my current favorite book;

Brightly Woven. It's about a weaver girl named Sydelle taken from her desert village to be assistant to a wizard working to stop a war.
I love it for the well thought-out plot, but most of all because of the characters and how flawed Sydelle and Wayland, the heros, are.
It's a really grand YA fantasy when most all YA fantasies are now all about being darker and darker than the last. :rolleyes:
 
Well obviously other than Narnia.:p

Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion
*The Archives of Anthropos
Redwall
Ranger's Apprentice
The Inheritence Cycle
Warriors Cats



* Since few people know about Anthropos I will elaborate on it: the first and second books are about a boy named John who finds a magical land called Anthropos and once arriving there is hailed as the Sword Bearer who is destined to slay the Goblin Prince (whom John has met in this world as well). In the second book John is joined by a girl called Eleanor and they meet a mysterious person called Gaal (the Christ-figure in the books, his father is the Unchangable Changer, who John meets in the first book).
The third through six books are about John's niece and nephews (Wesley, Lisa and Kurt) and how they find Anthropos while staying at their uncle's house by way of some old TV's. The three are joined in their adventures by Mary (who I believe is their cousin) and later a girl called Betty.
(oh and if you have ever heard me mention the phrase "Blue light is True light" -which was in my signature for a long time- it comes from Anthropos.;))
 
I was going to write a review for this thread, but I forgot all about it. *headdesk* Silly me! :p I can't think of anything in particular to recommend at the moment, but I think I shall review the last Ranger's Apprentice book when I finish it. :D
 
Flipped. Its a coming of age/cute romance story. Its about a girl(Juli Baker) who moves into town, and immediately has a fondness for Bryce. It chronicles their from grade school up to junior high. The chapters go back and forth from Juli's perspective and then to Bryce's. It is a fantastic page-turner, and a book that you wouldn't want to put down.

Here are some other books that I recommend:

Lemony Snicket: An Series Of Unfortunate Events.

Junie B. Jones series

Les Miserables

Mockingbird

Mark Twain Autobiography: Vol. 1

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Those are just a few at the moment that I recommend.
 
Another one I'd like to throw out I just re-read for the first time in years.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

It's a very fresh story and that has such potential to go down the stereotypical fantasy path, and doesn't.
For instance, the main character is a Countess, named Meliara, who lives in a rustic castle with her brother behaving not much like a countess at all but stays out of sticking to a sort of warrior-princess attitude. She's plenty dependent on her brother and her few friends, makes foolish mistakes and is completely human. And has the most hilarious temper and way of over-thinking simple things that makes her such a delight to read.

Anywho, yeah. Really. Read it.
 
I finished Neil Gaiman's book 'Neverwhere' a few days ago, and I really enjoyed it. Like most books by Gaiman, it's slightly psychologically-tanged. Some magazine described it as: "The sort of book Terry Pratchett might produce if he spent a month locked in a cell with Franz Kafka."

So yeah. I basically suck at summaries, but I strongly recommend this book.
 
I've read a couple of Gaiman's works, and though I find it hard to encapsulate them, if I had to, I'd say "imaginative but not coherent". He's got a lot of bright, clever images clicking around in there, but there's no coherent worldview holding them together. Especially, there's no reason that "good guys" are good or "bad guys" bad - there just seem to be all these conflicts between strong and quirky personalities, with random stuff like magic thrown in.

He shares something with Charles Williams (one of the Inklings): he writes presuming that you'll catch some of his obscure allusions and piece together what he's talking about. In a way that's a mark of mature writing and respect for you reader; i.e. you don't feel you have to explain every niggling detail to them (C.J. Cherryh does a wonderful job of it.) But it calls for nuance - you can't be too obscure or your readers get lost.
 
In ways I agree with you. I didn't even like Gaiman's books until I finished Coraline. Come to think of it, I didn't feel like reading Neverwhere until I was...somewhere in the middle of it. Then it got interesting.

But he is irreplacable. I've never read any books like his.
 
If you like fantasy then check out The Binding of the Blade Series, there are five books and it about a boy who is prophesied to be a large part of defeating evil in the world.
I also have started another fantasy series called The Legends of the Guardian King. I am working on the second book but the first book is how a prince realized that the beliefs that he studied to become a monk were wrong and his struggle to find the truth.

They are both very interesting, at least to me. :)
 
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