My goodreads.com list is a mix of things that I've read recently, things that are on friends' lists that I have read at some point in my life, and some of my favorite books.
I have just finished Three Cups of Tea. It's pretty incredible that a guy who was living out of his car raised the funds to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He's not an ordinary person by any means--how many of us would be able to learn several languages as quickly as he seemed to?--but he is an example of what a person can do when suitably inspired.
So now I'm without a read. Unfortunately, I am a picky reader. I am not a fan of mass-market books. My favorite fiction comes from the 19th century. I like biographies, history, sociological explorations, and travel books, mainly. I tend to read the same books over and over. Part of me feels like what I ought to be reading are radiology journals and textbooks, to brush up on my work skills. Technically, I should be reading the next book for our Relief Society book club--A Train to Potevka, but I don't feel particularly motivated to pick it up.
So, any suggestions?
7 comments:
How about "The Covenant" by James Michener, or is that a mass market book?
I'm glad Rick and I aren't the only Bill Bryson fans out there. I just started re-reading A Short History of Nearly Everything. It was funny to read In a Sunburned Country before moving to Australia and reading it again after living here a while.
A favorite of mine is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I also am not a mass market book reader either. If I could I would pull the Oprah logo off my copy of The Poisonwood Bible. I also recommend Author Unknown by Don Foster.
Michener likes to add a historical information to his books. They're not bad.
Hi Misty! Good to hear from you! I didn't think that In a Sunburned Country was Bryson's best book, but it is, I'm sure, more pithy and topical when you've lived there.
Mine of course! (Seems like that's all I read these days. Revisions. Revisions, and more revisions.)
I am so glad you are enjoying goodreads.com! You shouldn't feel bad about reading outside of your profession! If we all read only books related to our field I would go crazy! Thanks for sharing your book with me!
I read a Train to Potevka recently. I had a hard time putting it down because it is about the author although he called it fiction. He lives in my town and I met him at the Bookwise Bestsellers Conference in SLC, Utah in October. We got pictures of about 15 Booksellers who each had sold over a million copies of their books. The best book I have read is Water for Elephants, really well written. Other books I have read this last year are Lone Survivor, The Gift, A Thousand Splendid Suns (the author also wrote The Kite Runner, a movie that was just out) God Said Yes, Infidel and others. I read a lot of non-fiction as well as fiction.
I recently finished two totally different books that I would like to recommend to you. The first is "Charlie Wilson's War" (haven't seen the movie) by George Crile. It will cause you to really ponder government appropriations - a topic that you have been dying to become jaded about, I am sure.
Another, interesting read in a completely different direction is "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith. Mark convinced me I should check it out and he is a modern fiction whore and makes great choices.
Both are so totally different and worth the effort. Umm, I should add these are not books that would be covered by the RS Book Club, if you get my drift, so you can plan on enjoying them for sure.
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