Thanks!

the last book I read is Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin (was awesome ) and now I am reading Beach Music and I recomand you to read too.

Lucica, I read Beach Music about 15 years ago. It's one of Conroy's best in my opinion. I would also recommend reading his autobiography "Conrak" - much better than the movie...
Some good reads since my last post include: "To Siberia" by Per Pettersen; "The Witch of Portobello" by Paulo Coelho; "The Elephant Keeper" by Christopher Nicholson; and "The Imperial Cruise - a Secret History of Empire and War" by James Bradley.

Here are four more titles to consider: "Smoke and Mirrors - Short Fictions and Illusions" by Neil Gaiman; "South of the Border, West of the Sun" by Haruki Murakami; "Petropolis" by Anya Ulinich; and "The Introvert Advantage - How to Thrive in an Extrovert World" by Marti Olsen Laney.
Keep reading!!!

Just finished a great book on the best seller list. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. A fiction, however based on fact. One of the best books I've read in a long time. And really thought provoking. I grew up poor in Baltimore, and basically lived in black neighborhoods. I was not raised to "see color." Until the 60's, when I was a very young bride, did everything explode and I realized what was happening in our country. Read the book and learn just a small part of the suffering.

Several of my friends have encouraged me to read "The Help." I've got to get hold of a copy. Now there's a movie about to be released - I'd like to read it before I see it. My mother also grew up poor in Baltimore but a bit before your time. She left school in the 8th grade to help her mother and older sister deliver "bathtub gin" during prohibition...

Thanks Dick. I am also an avid reader. primarilly historical fiction like The Gates of Thermoplie and Bernard Cornwell novels about the revolutionary war.of course all of Web Griffin's war soaps. also Clive Clussler's NUMA fantasy. well thanks for the tips. chance

After almost a year of exclusively reading self-help and parenting books, I've finally started to delve back into the fiction section of the bookstore. This summer I have read two books that have stuck with me in very different ways - Room by Emma Donoghue and The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

Here are a few more good reads I've recently finished: "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope" by William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer; "JFK and the Unspeakable - Why He Died and Why it Matters" by James W. Douglass; "A Wild Sheep Chase" by Haruki Murakami; "The Hakawati" by Rabih Alameddine; "Nocturnes - Five Stories of Music and Nightfall" by Kazuo Ishiguro; and "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk.

The last book that I read was Amelia, since I was going to see the movie .

Just finished a really good novel by Chang-Rae Lee called "The Surrendered." It focuses on the intertwined lives of an eleven year old girl who has survived war-torn Korea, a twenty-one year old American soldier and a 40ish American woman who, with her husband, runs an orphanage in Korea after the war. All three struggle with the tragic and haunting demons of their respective childhoods. Character development is excellent. Lee is a terrific story teller.
Before that I read "The Eleventh Man" by Ivan Doig. Another good story, although Doig is not as skilled with the language as Lee. This one is about the teammates of an undefeated football team from a fictional college in Montana. Their successful year is climaxed by the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. They all volunteer and head off in different directions. One of them is chosen by the Army (for his writing skills) to follow each of the others and produce stories of each one to be published in local newspapers. An interesting plot and a good read.

I just finished everything in my library... I'm ready for something fun and light hearted. Ideas?

A couple of really fun reads are "The River Why" by David James Duncan - some parts will make you laugh out loud - it's about fly fishing in Oregon. Also, "Where River Turns to Sky" by Gregg Kleiner - very fun read - about a man's effort to rescue old folks from a nursing home.

I'll pass on The River Why... read that some time ago, my only lasting impression was that I did not wish to read it again. LOL I will, however, try Where River Turns to Sky. Thank You!

I'm reading Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk. It took me a chapter or two to get into the book, but it was worth sticking it out. The author weaves present day happenings of a person who is totally dependent on an employee she has trained with previous episodes of the relationship. It was first published in Afrikaans.

It's been awhile since I posted so I have a few titles to mention. Remember Charles van Doren - the guy who got caught up in the payola scandals back in the early days of TV quiz shows like "21" and "The $64,000 Question"? He wrote a book called "The History of Knowledge - Past, Present and Future." Not a great book, but if you are looking for a kind of "Readers Digest" synopsis of the great schools of thought from the Greeks forward, this will do.
If you've read any of my past posts you'll know that I tend to read novels that deal with ethnic or cross-cultural issues. Here are some that I've read since my last post:
The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama - follows the lives of two brothers in a Tokyo suburb from the mid-thirties, through and after WWII. A great read.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - a curious dealing with the coming of age theme.
The Cave by Jose Saramago - a modern day expansion on Plato's analogy.
Moloka'i by Alan Brennert - follows the life of a native Hawaiian girl who is taken from her family at the age of seven in the late 1800's and sent to live in the leper colony on Moloka'i.'
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson - another good mystery by this author - very readable.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - a surreal look at the history of one family in an emerging nation.
Good reading!

Here are a couple of titles I've recently enjoyed - Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

love to see a post from a reader. i am a librarian( the friendly yet strange kind ) and a total biblophile. recomended books.... elantris, room, the help, the rook etc, etc.

Hi...I am re reading ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand...the book my look a bit daunting by the size and print and larger text is available. I have never known a book to be so concurrent with today's life in the USA. Ayn Rand wrote this book in 1952-4.
I WOULD LOVE TO FIND A BOOK ON HOW TO PLAY SOLITAIRE...I THOUGHT I WAS ONE WHO THOUGHT OUTSIDE THE BOX NATURALLY, BUT CERTAINLY NOT IN THIS GAME OR VENUE.

I really enjoyed The Help, also. I recently read another great book: Sarah's Key which is set in France and deals with what was happening there during WWII. I never knew that the French police rounded up Jews and sent them on trains to Auschwitz.