AskAManager discussion

This is very sparse, so I thought we'd start it off with a quick discussion about our favorite books! (Not very imaginative, I know, but... well, we have have to get going somehow!)

Ooh, that's tough! For now, I'm going to say All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

Of more recent stuff (so excluding my love for Edith Wharton and Jane Austen), I'd say:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Night Circus (seriously, this is amazing; you must read it)

Less-heard-of stuff that I've also really liked recently:
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
anything by Calvin Trillin (especially About Alice)
anything by Jhumpa Lahiri

I'm one of Alison's many librarian readers, so I have LOTS of favorite books. My specialty is children's librarianship, so hit me up if you have kids or just enjoy good story regardless of intended audience.

Probably my all time favorite book is Blankets by Craig Thompson. I also loved Bechdel's Fun Home. So I'm really into graphic novel memoirs, I guess.

The most recent book that I really enjoyed was Paperboy, a historical fiction novel for kids about a boy with a stutter who takes over a friend's paper route for a month. It just received a Newbery Honor and is a great story.

Looking forward to this group!

Alison named two of my favorite fiction works, but here are some others:

Wool
The Count of Monte Cristo
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The Book Thief
Ready Player One
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Namesake
The Imperfectionists

To Kill A Mockingbird is my hands down favourite, I've read it multiple times. Also, Little Women.

Recently though my recommend-to-everyone book is Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris.

I love, love, love Kate Morton, especially The Forgotten Garden and The Secret Keeper. Her books are kind of historical fiction and kind of mysteries - they jump back and forth between several generations, and you don't know exactly what was happening until the end.

I also really enjoy Josephine Tey, especially Daughter of Time, Brat Farrar, and The Franchise Affair.

Thank you for mentioning Josephine Tey. I also love her books but haven't thought of them forever. I could definitely re-read Daughter of Time and I don't think I have read the other two you mention...

I'm in a George R.R. Martin phase right now, and am re-reading A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm currently re-reading A Dance with Dragons. I want to do the Feast/Dance read at some point, but it's harder since I read on a Kindle.

My all time favorite fiction books -
The Once and Future King - T.H. White
J.R.R. Tolkien - the whole works - Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Children of Hurin, Silmarillion, and so on and so forth.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (I'm from Alabama, it's required)
Little House on the Prairie (I still re-read these too.)

Gosh there are too many to list. I read a lot of "old" stuff.

My favorites are The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Misery by Stephen King, and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

There are many, many more but these are just the top three.

Ready Player One- is fantastic
I'm a big Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly & Jack Reacher by Lee Child, nerd. I have read them all, many times over.

I also read Stuart Woods and Janet Evanovich regularly as good light fluff reading. The work is entertaining enough for me to continue, but nothing that stellar.

Also, Let's Pretend This never Happened by Jenny Lawson is one of my favorites.

Alison wrote: "Of more recent stuff (so excluding my love for Edith Wharton and Jane Austen), I'd say:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Night Circus (seriously, this is amazing; you must read it)

Le..."

I got The Night Circus for Christmas - LOVED it.

Gina wrote: "For a Jane Austen newbie, what do you recommend I read first?

I'm currently reading "Furies of Calderon" and am withholding judgment so far. I like JK Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Tamora Pierce, and Ste..."

Gina, I started with Emma.I have no idea why I thought Jane Austen would be stuffy, but Emma blew that perception out of the water. I had so much fun with her voice in that book that I moved right on to Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. The others are still on my list.

On that note, I'd also recommend this awesome article: http://thedissolve.com/features/movie...

Gina, I'd start with Pride and Prejudice. It's my personal favorite.

Some favorite fiction:
The Language of Flowers
Room
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Poisonwood Bible

Some favorite non-fiction:
168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think
Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children
Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

Heather wrote: "To Kill A Mockingbird is my hands down favourite, I've read it multiple times.

That is my absolute favorite all-time book too. :-)

I'm going to stick to favorite books I read in the past year or so, to narrow it down.

The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (cannot wait to read The Secret History)
The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach

I've also been reading a lot of Alice Munro lately, but it's hard to choose a particular book or story. You can start practically anywhere with her work and end up in a good place.

Also, I just looked up The Night Circus, and it was available on ebook at the library and it's downloading to my kindle right this second! Serendipity, sort of. I needed a Game of Thrones break anyway - I've been reading the collected works for weeks and the e-reader says I still have 70 hours left to go.

Oohh...I've read and loved many of these same books and many others named are on my bookshelf (or Kindle) in queue. I loved The Night Circus too...also very similar tastes to Erica: Ready Player One and Let's Pretend This Never Happened.

I read with a 17YO girl that I mentor and her picks indulge my YA side. I'm about to start Raven Boys, I really liked the Infernal Devices trilogy (Cassandra Clare) and also Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Laini Taylor...also a trilogy).

Recent recos: Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, Swamplandia, The Golem and the Jinni, Hyperbole and a Half

Books at the top of my to-read pile:
The Painter; Flash Boys; Boy, Snow, Bird; Astonish Me; Five Days at Memorial

The Art of Fielding is great. And oh, The Time Traveler's Wife! That will probably end up on my all-time list.

My all-time faves:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

This is going to be great, I need recommendations!

I think before we get too deep into this discussion, it might work better to either set up separate discussions for different genres of books, or figure out how to use the Bookshelf feature?

I think that separate discussions for different genres would be good - there's already one started in the 'Other Bookshelf Ideas' folder, but other people should feel free to start their own!

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, the first season of the TV series is coming out this summer on Starz, squee!

My favorites are The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami (amazing book, ate my brain while I was reading it); The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen; and, the classic, Dubliners by James Joyce.

I'm so glad this group was started; I know I'm going to get some great suggestions!

This is so hard because I basically love all the books, but two books I can read over and over and really love are Wicked by Gregory Maguire - though I'm not really that into the rest of teh series - and Barbara Walters' autobiography, Audition. Even if you're not fan of hers, she's led a fascinating life.

I too count The Night Circus and Kavalier & Clay among my favorites. Some other recent greats:
Let the Great World Spin
The Goldfinch
Beautiful Ruins
The Orphan Master's Son

Anne wrote: "Probably my all time favorite book is Blankets by Craig Thompson. I also loved Bechdel's Fun Home. So I'm really into graphic novel memoirs, I guess. "

These are two of my favorites as well! They're also two of my go-to book recommendations for people who want to have the "but comics and graphic novels aren't REALLY literature" argument. If you've never read a comic book or graphic novel and want to see the medium at its best, pick up one of these books!

I'm one of Alison's many librarian readers, and I try to read across as many genres as possible so I can make better recommendations to my patrons. I love to read sci-fi/fantasy, creative nonfiction, and graphic novels, but my actual list of favorites is genre-defying (hah). A few, in no particular order:

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
The Secret History
Lilith's Brood: Dawn / Adulthood Rites / Imago
Kushiel's Dart
Saga, Volume 1
Assassination Vacation
Sophie's Choice
Till We Have Faces
Hyperion
Life After God
Manhunter, Vol. 1: Street Justice
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Kingdom Come

Angie wrote: "Oohh...I've read and loved many of these same books and many others named are on my bookshelf (or Kindle) in queue. I loved The Night Circus too...also very similar tastes to Erica: Ready Player ..."

I liked Raven Boys (didn't realize it was the start of a series), but I liked The Scorpio Races (same author) even more. Also YA. Also quasi-fantasy. If your mentee likes YA with a heavy dose of paranormal romance (like Twilight but less painful to read -- and I loved Twilight), I'm enjoying the Beautiful Creatures series.

Night Circus is a great book.

My all time favorite book is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

I'm really into Tana French now, I've read all her books but The Likeness is my favorite.

Can we talk children's books? My favorites are The Westing Game, Belle Prater's Boy, and anything by Diana Wynne Jones.

My favorite book of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird.

Stephen King is my favorite author (can't go wrong with Misery), and I too like YA dystopian books. My favorite is Battle Royale.