Books We Love (Adult Reading List)

I'm putting together a book list of excellent reading, both current and classic, on this page.

February 2008:

I've been reading Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy:

• The Golden Compass (also coming on DVD in April 2008)
• The Subtle Knife
• The Amber Spyglass

I bought it for the girls for Christmas but quickly discovered that, despite the fact that we'll probably watch the DVD together when it comes out in April, the reading (and content) is a bit advanced for them.

Beach Reads/Page Turners:

Jodi Picoult:

• March 8-9, 2008: I finished Change of Heart over the weekend and recommend it in the "page turner" category. Reading Jodi Picoult always fills me with a mixture of pleasure and shame....the three novels I've read so far have been fun and easy to read, but the shame part comes from how cliched and predictable they are. I won't post a spoiler here, but I knew what the climax would be after about ten pages.
• January 19-20, 2008: I tried to read Nineteen Minutes over the course of one weekend, but discovered around page 165 (and at 5:05pm on a Sunday) that I had received a defective book that was missing all of the odd pages between 165 and 199. It was the unfortunate moment when the paperback was about to be released, so the local bookstores didn't have any hardcovers left in stock and the library had just closed. I finished the book without the odd pages, and read the missing pages when Amazon sent a replacement copy, but it wasn't quite the same experience.
• January 12-13, 2008: The Tenth Circle was the first Jodi Picoult book I read, either in early January or late December. It had an interesting tie-in to Dante's Inferno, as well as many unnerving (if they are correct) insights into teenagers.

Terry McMillan

Challenging Reads/"Literature"

Doris Lessing: The Golden Notebook

Richard Russo: Empire Falls, The Whore's Child, Bridge of Sighs, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool