Book Worm Mama's!! I Need Some New Books...

I too am a voracious reader, especially in the winter time. I tend to like crime/ mystery so I would recommend James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell (Cornwell's tend to involve more grisly medical/ autopsy things- so might not be for more more squeamish). I also loved Ken Follett's historical fiction starting with Pillars of the Earth (set in medieval England follows a story of several families in a village). I didn't read Jane Austen until I was an adult, but my absolute favorites are Pride & Prejudic and Sense & Sensibility. I have read these two several times over the last few years.

Cutting for Stone, awesome book nobody is talking about yet but I read it three times and everyone I gave it to loved it also

The Ape House, by same person as Water for Elephants, which is also great

anything by Barbara Kingsolver

Intensity Dean Koontz

Hi R., I'm currently into Anthony Bourdain. I like his show and am a major foodie. Plus my son is considering culinary school. I'm enjoying him thoroughly but wouldn't recommend him to anyone who is easily offended, tehehe.

bookbookbookbookbookkkk, I see what you mean, and I'm already on my second pot of coffee of the day!

;)

I've read TONS of books by Karen Kingsbury! She's great. Start with "Redemption".

Full House by Karen Andersen/son (not sure how it's spelled)

The Schoolmasters Daughters by Dorothy Eden

Water For Elephants

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN!)

The Help - Amazing!!
Water for Elephants - The movie better live up to the book!!! :-)
The Glass Castle - couldn't put it down.
The Hunger Games Trilogy - its for teens/young adults but really worth reading.
The Thorn Birds - better than the tv series
No Time for Goodbye - keeps you guessing.

You sound like a bookaholic like me, there is no cure thank goodness.:-)
Bet you have read most of these and I could go on but better get back to work. :-)

Oh just had to add The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton - kept me up till the wee hours just so I could finish it. :-)

Every once in a while this subject comes up. So it has prompted me to start having a list. Not for something like this, but I read so much that I sometimes forget about some of my favorites! I would suggest to join or start a book club. As a wellness educator, I didn't realize how much I was in a rut and only reading "health and wellness" type of books. We are finishing our 4th year of the same 10-12 women in our book club and it has really opened my eyes to books I would have never really picked up on my own! Such as. . .

"Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett. I would have NEVER picked this book on my own! It is set in midevel times so kings, knights, sword fights etc. (you might like the gore and sex ;)) AND it is almost 1000 pages! But I could not put it down and couldn't wait to read the sequel "The World Without End"

Some of the more 'modern' classics that others have mentioned are:
"The Help" by Kathryn Sockett
"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

I also HIGHLY recommend the Stieg Larsson Trilogy,
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
"The Girl who Played with Fire"
"The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest"

Then just a few other of my favorite reads were
"Life Lists" by Olivia Gentile
"Blue Tattoo" by Margot Mifflin
"The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister
"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield

If you like naughty humor, like someone else said, the Janet Evanovich books are great. She's my 'go to' author if I'm between book club books and/or just want something a little more light. *I'm looking forward to checking out Christopher Moore.

And just because I have to throw a few of my favorite health related books in as well.
"The Hundred Year Lie" by Randall Fitzgerald
"In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan
"What We Eat" by Marion Nestle

good forum!

I read from a broad range of genres. I just cashed in a ton of books this past wkend....aren't those resale book shops great?!!

The Shack by William P. Young....for an uplifting story..
Janet Evanovich is fun & sometimes raunchy.
Tara Janzen....special ops based romance.
Anne Stuart.....the Ice series....again romance/danger.
Tony Hillerman, Aimee & David Thurlo - the Ella Clah series & others, Nevada Barr - the Anna Pigeon series, J.A. Jance, & James Lee Burke - are all good mysteries.
Robert B. Parker & Stuart Woods....mysteries with a bite to them, humor-wise.
Mary Janice Davidson, Katie MacAllister.....raunchy, funny paranormal romances.
Karen Marie Moning, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris - the Harper Connelly series (not the Sookie Stackhouse series), Kim Harrison....all good choices for paranormal.

Okay, I'm done....I could add lots more, but ......I need to go read a book!

I wish I enjoyed reading more than I do- I never make the time to do it. So I am a total "amateur" and I think most people are probably way "out of my league" to to speak.

But I can honestly say that I wait (very impatiently) for a new Sue Grafton novel to come out- one every 2 years! She writes the alphabet mysteries (A is for Alibi, B is for Burgler, etc...) She is up to U is for Undertow and I LOVE LOVE LOVE every single one of them- I can't put them down and I will stay up for hours because I can never find a stopping point.

There's something about her writing, and the way the main character has such personality, that has me completely hooked! Have you read any of her books? I always think that I can't possibly be the only one who has ever read them all. I don't know many people who have ever heard of her, yet her books are always everywhere.

My latest favorite read was Franklin and Eleanor by Hazel Rowley

On Amazone here: http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Eleanor-Extraordinary-Haze...

Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Bridget Jones series
My Antonia -- Willa Cather
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Susan Isaacs' books -- especially "Shining Through". (Awful movie, great book.)

i like weird stuff, so my booklists appeal to no one but myself.
feminist sci fi/fantasy- sheri s tepper, cj cherryh.
romance/adventure- old mary stewart's. gods, how i love them. and i don't even care for that genre as a general rule!
pretty much anything by patricia a mckillip (usually found in YA section.)
sci fi- the dune series by frank herbert, hyperion series by dan simmons.
classics- jane eyre, dracula, metamorphoses, homer (robert fagles translations, or the audio versions read by gandalf).
:) khairete
S.

Probably my all time favorite book is The Testament by John Grisham. Not sure why it is my favorite but I have it in hardcover, paperback and have had it on cd. I am including other fav authors in this as I gave it to anothe rmama not long ago.
I read the Help, Wednesday sisters, Look Again and Firefly lane for my book club. I liked all of them a lot. Here is a list of my favorite authors. I just got the newest Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. It was wonderful. Made me laugh out loud.

I love the following. I will try to put them in genre's These are my favorites and I go to the bookstore the day they come out. they are all good reads. if you want just light fluff make you laugh go for janet evanavitch quirky funny characters

Romance
Nora Roberts she has a lot of trilogy sets my fav is the Chesapeake series
which she later added another one too so there are 4 lol but you can get them all in one book now. she has a vampire series a demon series and a couple of witch series. but they can all be read as stand alones also. she is my #1 favorite author.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips has about 20 books which will make you laugh out loud till you cry. has a loosely put together series about a fictious football team called the chicago stars.
Susan Wiggs
Elizabeth Lowell does both current and historical all stand alones with some characters floating between books
Judith McNaught
Judith Michael
Jude Deveraux loads of books with characters from 2 different families floating between as well as a bunch of other stand alone books

Julie Garwood favorite series is called the rose series 2 novels and then 3 smaller novella's
Jayne Ann Krentz loads of trilogies and stand alones with some characters that float between books
Mystery
Nora Roberts
J.D. Robb (nora roberts writing under different name lol futuristic crime drama starring eve dallas )
Julie Garwood
Kay Hooper (really creepy paranormal stuff) the bishop series I think there are about 10 or 12 of them now
Catherine Coulter the fbi thrillers
Lisa Scottoline
Iris Johansen the eve duncan series is great
Lee Child
Harlan Coban
Legal Thrillers
John Grisham
David Baldacci
Historical Romance
Amanda Quick (jayne ann krentz writing under different name)
paranormal futuristic romance
Jayne Castle (jayne ann krentz)
children's literature which I also enjoyed
all J. K Rowling harry potter books
lois lowry the Giver which I just found out has 2 more books loosely associated with it.

good luck

Secret garden
shadow of the wind
Shanghai girls
Strike the harp
The postmistress by Blake
The 19th wife
The immortal life

I read The Clan of the Cave Bear series, especially the 2nd & 3rd books (The Valley of Horses & The Mammoth Hunters). The finale of the series was just published. It's historical fiction, set in "prehistory" (like 40,000 BC) but is a great love story (there's def. sex in it).

I love Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasy series The Fionavar Tapestry. If you loved Lord of the Rings, you'll love this. His best stand-alone book is Tigana, but I also liked The Lions of Al Rassan and A Song For Arbonne. His more recent books, not as much.

I'm currently reading the Jane Austen Mysteries series (I love Jane Austen's characters & I love mysteries). These are written by Stephanie Barron.

I second the Christopher Moore books. "Lamb:the gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal" had me laughing outloud. Same with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. Not a fan of romance novels, but the "by the numbers" series are hilarious detective tales. "Water for Elephants", "Oryx and Crake", "A Paradigm of Earth" and "Gods Behaving Badly" are great reads too. I'm currently rereading my favorite series, George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. This is a 4 book (#5 due out later this year) medieval fantasy series that starts with "A Game of Thrones" which is currently in production as a new mini-series for HBO. These books are packed with war, plotting, heraldry of houses in a fictional feudal system, magic, etc. They are amazingly detailed and descriptive, but because book focuses on a specific set of characters and each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, they are wonderful to read and not overwhelming or confusing.

I really don't read fiction, but if you like true stories, I can recommend some good ones.
Both Seabiscuit (some slightly raunchy parts) and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand were both excellent page turners.
Half Broke Horses and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls were also excellent.

The Hunger Games Series- Suzanne Collins
Spirit Gate series- Kate Elliot (I think you'll like this one, gory and sexy for sure)
Upon Eagle's Light series (book 2 is Chase the Wind)- Clover Autrey
Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente - where essentially lackluster people have to be intimate to exchange tattoo like maps in order to unlock different areas of an amazing almost steampunk like dreamworld.

Most of the books I like are pretty tame and classics (like bronte, austen...), mostly mild fantasy or ya (like Eragon, Books of Umber, The Tapestry, Twilight...), so you probably wont like those! I'm in the middle of like 4 different trilogies right now!

All time fave, Robert Jordan's Eye of the World Series. I started it in 1992. Book 13 just came out in Nov and there is one more to go to finish the series.

Sandra Kring: Carry Me Home. Amazing book. Absolutely amazing. Her other books are good too, but this one really is the best.

Lisa Kelypas: Historical Romances and a 3 book series of modern fiction. Great books.

Hunger Games. Great series, even if it was written for young adults.

Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud (movie adapted from it is just Charlie St. Cloud) by Ben Sherwood. Really good book.

I have not read a Nicholas Sparks book that I did not like.
If you are looking for something "sexy" the best author on the market in my opinion for that type of books is Emma Holly.
I have read as many David Baldacci books as I could get my hands on.
I also really enjoy Patricia Cornwell...although some of them are on the disturbing side.
Happy Reading!