Peace and Pekoe
If you’d like to join in, just copy and paste these instructions to your own blog (with a link to the blog where you found it, please) and post your list. First, post 10 books which you read on someone else’s recommendation which you just loved. (They don’t have to be particularly influential or best books of all time, just that you really loved reading it). Then post 5 books which you read on someone else’s recommendation which just fell flat, and why.
Best Recommended Reading (in no particular order)
1. The Chronicles of Narnia. My siblings have, over my lifetime, gotten me hooked on so many utterly readable books. But the Chronicles are the first books I recall reading on someone else’s recommendation and they have stood the test of time. I believe it was my brother Richard who recommended them, when I was 7 or so, and I just burned through those books, beginning a lifetime love for fantasy (and later, science fiction).
2. Sense and Sensibility. Ironically enough, this also belongs on the ‘fell flat’ list, since my mother recommended this book to me when I was but a callow youth of 14, at which time I did NOT appreciate the wordiness or the wry humor. But when, as a freshman in college, I admitted to my friend Ellen that although I loved Jane Austen movie adaptations I hadn’t read any of the books through, her shock convinced me to pick it up again and fall in love with Austen’s fantastic prose.
3. Odd Thomas. Recommended by Julie of Happy Catholic, and praised and quoted on her blog often enough that I knew I had to add it to my library hold list. Totally worth it. Burned through all the Odd Thomas books in short measure.
4. The Quotidian Mysteries: Life, Laundry and Women’s Work, by Kathleen Norris. Lent to me by another mom, I think I have yet to return it. I may have to buy a new copy to return, this one is a little beaten from riding in my purse!
5. Brideshead Revisited. My college roommate was reading it for a class and raving about it, so I borrowed her copy. (I later took the same class, which had me conveniently one book ahead). Brideshead ranks as my favorite novel of all time, so this was definitely a good recommendation!
6. 1632 by Eric Flint. I generally shy away from alternate history books, much as I enjoy most strains of speculative fiction. But my husband picked up this book, and the sequels, and got me hooked. Great popcorn reading peppered with political theory and biographical style history. The plot? Modern West Virginia mining town gets dropped into the Germanies of the 30 years war. Much societal change and chaos ensues. Read these books and I guarantee you will become fascinated by and infatuated with at least one real historical figure that you never thought twice about before. Bonus for Catholics: one sequel deals with the trial of Galileo – and actually gets the theological and political nuances RIGHT. Better than some purported history texts have.
7. The Kristin Lavrinsdatter trilogy. Recommended by my mother-in-law. Absolutely fascinating.
8. Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card. I had read Ender’s Game long before, but it was my roommate during the summer of my junior year who got me well and totally hooked on the rest of the series. I have my criticisms of the later books, but I still really enjoy the character dramas and the mystery/science/religious elements of this particular installment.
9. The Miles Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Thanks, big sisters! Who doesn’t need more character-driven mercenary space opera, right?
10. The Secret Life of Bees. My mother in law was reading this when I last visited, and I picked it up on her recommendation. I generally steer clear of Oprah-recommended best-sellers like the plague, so I was pleased to find the book to be a pleasant, thought-provoking, insightful and uplifting read.
Books that have fallen flat, despite being highly recommended:
1. The Mother’s Rule of Life. For some reason I can’t get past the first chapter, I don’t know why.
2. Silence by Shusako Endo. Recommended by several writers and bloggers whom I respect. I bought it on Amazon and waited impatiently for it…and found it too grim and grey to finish.
3. Dune by Frank Hebert. For the most part I love sci-fi. I can’t stand the mysticism of Dune. It dissappointed me in some of the same ways “Stranger in a Strange Land” did…when a character is set up as a prophetic figure, I find myself wanting something more out of him or her. Something a little less…worldly…in scope.
4. The Confederacy of Dunces. Am I the only one who likes my main characters to be, well, likeable? This one I will probably pick up and try again, seeing as I live in New Orleans and I think liking Confederacy of Dunces (or at least being able to quote Ignatius (the main character) on a regular basis) is some sort of requirement for cultured/educated New Orleanians.
5. Brothers Karamazov. Recommended to me by…well, at least one brother-in-law, my husband, several good friends, and more than one respected professor/mentor. Still, I can’t get more than ten pages in without feeling terribly confused. Perhaps books that require more than a couple minutes attention at a time will just have to wait until the children are grown. Or at least grown more.
What recommendations really hit a home run for you? Which struck out? I tag Happy Catholic, Laura, Der Wolfenwalt and SalomeEllen…. and take a look at Kalanna’s contribution. (way to take the initiative!).
I promise, I will try to turn out new posts a little faster in the future. Most of my books are still boxed up, which made doing a book meme a little harder and slower than usual. 🙂
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