Back to School With the Biblioracle
Class is back in session at campuses across the nation. But for the rest of us who yearn for an assigned reading list, the Biblioracle will recommend your next favorite novel today from 2-3:00 p.m. ET.
I’ve been thinking about books.
“No duh,” you say, you’re the Biblioracle, you should be living and breathing books, which is true, but I also live and breathe Top Chef: Just Desserts, and rec league no-check hockey, and for the moment, U.S. Open tennis, which has been magnificent.
Are there better athletes than tennis players? I can’t imagine them.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about books because Mrs. Biblioracle and I recently moved to a new city, a new home, and all of our (OK, they’re mostly mine) books remain in boxes. I’ve been writing and working without them for a few weeks, and I’m beginning to question whether or not I need them around, physically I mean. Proximally. On the one hand, the new home doesn’t feel like home because I am not surrounded by my books. On the other hand, I have my memories of these books, not just the contents, but the feelings they gave me as I read them, the experience of being joined together. Maybe that’s enough.
I’m also thinking about books because since we last met, I received the first physical copies of my own book, The Funny Man, which will be widely available in just over two weeks. It was a thrill. I got a little misty. I think the illustrator and designer and printer did a great job. It’s one of the few books I have on my shelves in the new home. I look at it often. Some of the finish on the jacket is matte and some is shiny. I like to rub my fingers over the front to feel the different textures.
I’m also wondering if I’m just under the wire in terms of being able to publish a hardcover book, if it’s the last “physical” book that will ever appear with my name on it, even if I’m fortunate enough to go on to publish many more “books.” I have a Kindle with over 200 “books” on it. I recently tried to buy a book I already owned because I didn’t remember it. Amazon was kind enough to remind me.
And that’s when I felt the loss in regards to my collection of books. I went to the boxes, peeled back the flaps and peered down, checking on them, and memories I didn’t know I had returned, but I have no where to put them yet, so they go back into the box where they will wait, patiently, eternally.
You probably know the drill. List the last five books you’ve read in the comments section below, and I’lll recommend your next read. Given how many people tend to participate, the comments section will be open for one hour today, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011, from 2:00-3:00 p.m., Eastern Time. Anyone who gets their request in during that hour, I’ll do my best to give a recommendation. As always, you can reach the Biblioracle at biblioracle@gmail.com or @biblioracle on Twitter.
List the last five books you’ve read, and the Biblioracle tells you what to read next.
These comments are now closed.
82 comments
The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember by Nicholas Carr (currently reading)
Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr. (you recommended this to me, and all I have to say is THANK YOU)
Catch a Fire: the Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolano
Darkness Visible, William Styron
The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
Model Home, Eric Puchner
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
A Taste for Death by P.D. James
Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Diamond Ruby by Joseph Wallace
Dear Biblioracle,
What a delight to see you back here. I enjoyed your expert advice last time I used your service—About A Mountain was fantastic. Thank you!
Bluets, by Maggie Nelson
Letters to Emma Bowlcut, by Bill Callahan
The Natural House, by Frank Lloyd Wright
For Years Now: Poems by W.G. Sebald
A Susan Sontag Reader, by Susan Sontag / Elizabeth Hardwick
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
Cats' Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
I totally kept the secret until TMN's Twitter posted it! Glad to see you back so soon:
Tom Rachman, "The Imperfectionists" **in progress**
Marc Saporta, "Composition No. 1"
Jay McInerney, "How It Ended"
China Miéville, "Kraken"
Jim Butcher, "Ghost Story (The Dresden Files #13)"
Welcome back! Thanks so much for doing this; I love this event! Where are you living now?
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Mrs. Dalloway
Half of a Yellow Sun
Everything is Illuminated
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
tom rachman: the imperfectionists
ian mcewan: atonement
jonathan franzen: how to be alone
lorrie moore: a gate at the stairs (my last biblioracle recommendation, which i loved)
leo tolstoy: anna karenina
My 5:
Retromania, Simon Reynolds
Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
The Colony, Jillian Weise
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
The Warrior's Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold
Away - Amy Bloom
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
Floating in my Mother's Palm - Ursula Hegi
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Mr. Peanut - Adam Ross
Thank you, Biblioracle!
Bowl of Cherries - Millard Kaufman
The Impressioinist - Hari Kunzru
Autobiography of Malcolm X
A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin
Invisible - Paul Auster
Hey John, these are the last five books I read (and loved):
Mike Albo, The Junket - Muriel Spark, The Driver's Seat - Elizabeth Smart, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept - James McCourt, Kaye Wayfaring in 'Avenged' - Alexander Chee, Edinburgh
Thanks!
A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter
White Heat by MJ McGrath
Sense and Senseability by Jane Austen
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Luis de Bernieres
The House of the Sprits by Isabel Allende
Thank you!
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami
The Magician King, Lev Grossman
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino
A Planet of Viruses, Carl Zimmer
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Her First American by Lore Segal
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
I've been looking forward to this since I missed the last one!
Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
Voodoo History - David Aaronovitch
Anagrams - Lorrie Moore
The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Many thanks!
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
Eros the Bittersweet - Anne Carson
Sophie Calle: Did you see me? - Sophie Calle
Mary - Nabokov
Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
Thanks so much, excited for your recommendation!
Hi John, my latest:
Netsuke, Rikki Ducornet
Memento Mori, Muriel Spark
Started Early, Took My Dog, Kate Atkinson
The Untouchable, John Banville
Funeral for a Dog, Thomas Pletzinger
Thanks so much!
Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street - Michael Davis
The Big Roads - Earl Swift
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
The Sweet Life in Paris - David Lebovitz
How to Wreck a Nice Beach - Dave Tompkins
Thanks!
Looks like we're off and running out of the gate.
@Elena: The Leftovers - Tom Perotta
@Jason Packham: Mrs. Bridge - Evan Connell
@Sprite: Bad Things Happen - Harry Dolan
@Meredith: Going off your FLW interest- The Women - T.C. Boyle
The Passage, Justin Cronin
The Gathering, Anne Enright
Varieties of Exile, Mavis Gallant
Pym, Mat Johnson
The Children's Book, AS Byatt
Swimming to Antarctica - Lynne Cox
The Anthropology of Turquoise - Ellen Meloy
Krakatoa - Simon Winchester
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakamki
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Alfred Lansing
The John Lardner Reader, John Lardner
SportsWorld, Robert Lipsyte
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
Blood Horses, John Jeremiah Sullivan
Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara (loved)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (loved)
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler (didn't care for it)
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (loved)
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola (okay)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
Spook County - William Gibson
The Difference Engine - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
At the Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahme-Smith
Last time you reccomended World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Great reccomendation, I really enjoyed it!
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning - Jonathan Mahler
Just Kids - Patti Smith
Swamplandia! - Karen Russell
Bonk - Mary Roach
Thank you!
“White Teeth” by Zadie Smith
“The Great Night” by Chris Adrian
“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” by Joan Didion
“Remainder” by Tom McCarthy (your last recommendation)
“The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
Staggerford - Jon Hassler
Unfamiliar Fishes - Sarah Vowell
Unbroken: A World II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption - Laura Hillenbrand
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
I'm a librarian by training (though not, sadly, by occupation at the moment), and am slightly annoyed that you're probably better at this than I am. :) Anyway:
* Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
* C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock
* Jennifer Egan, A Visit From the Goon Squad
* J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
* Bill Bryson, At Home
Also about to finish Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
The Pale King by DFW
Excession by Iain M. Banks
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Empire State: A Love Story - Jason Shiga
Busy Monsters - William Giraldi
The Leftovers - Tom Perrota
The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson
The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollack
Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
The Judas Goat by Robert B Parker
Soft Apocalypse by Wil McIntosh
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower - Proust
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
Phantastes - George MacDonald
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Thanks!
"Leaving the Atocha Station" by Ben Lerner
"Blue Nights" by Joan Didion
"Gods Behaving Badly" by Marie Phillips
"Happens Every Day" by Isabel Gillies
"C" by Tom McCarthy
"Fables: The Great Fables Crossover" by Bill Willingham
"The Best American Comics 2007" by Chris Ware
"All-Star Superman" by Grant Morrison
"The Areas Of My Expertise" by John Hodgman
"The TOON Treasury Of Classic Children's Comics" by Art Spiegelman
Zone One, Colson Whitehead
The City and The City, China Mieville
Pym, Mat Johnson
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
The Magician King, Lev Grossman
@case_face
Laura Lippman, What the Dead Know
Tina Fey, Bossy Pants
Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Carolyn Parkhurst, The Dogs of Babel
John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Mistborn: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Iorich by Steven Bristol
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Thanks!
@Michael: Day for Night - Frederick Reiken
@Drewsof: Stone Arabia - Dana Spiotta
@Girl Detective: The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson
@Emily C. (Looks like everyone's reading The Imperfectionists): The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender
@Jim Hart: King of the Badgers - Philip Hensher
@Vicki - Emporium - Adam Johnson
@Hobopom: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Marukami
@Florian: Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym
@Emily Elizabeth: Swamplandia - Karen Russell
@Kyle: Await Your Reply - Dan Chaon
@NSH: The Loser - Thomas Bernhard (not easy going, but stick with it)
@Amazing Ampersand - The Masters of Atlantis - Charles Portis
@Shannon - Journey to the End of Night - Celine
@Leslie Burmesiter - The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
@Vicky: Taking a chance that you haven't read this: A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Maugham, The Razor's Edge
Jessica Kane, The Report
Wolfe, The Right Stuff
Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(Recently revisiting favorite books from college...)
My 5:
My Orange Duffel Bag by sam Bracken
Not Between Brothers by david Marion Wilkinson
Major Pettigrews Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Angelogy by Danielle Trousini
One Second After by William Forstchen
Fair Play - Tove Janssen
A Void - Georges Perec
Love Begins in Winter - Simon Van Booy
Enough About Love - Herve Le Tellier
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
Voyage of the Shadowmoon by Sean Mcmullen
Cygnet by Patricia Mckillip
Tiassa by Steven Brust
Child Thief by Brom
The Fox by Sherwood Smith
Kevin Wilson - The Family Fang
Alice LaPlante - Turn of Mind
Melissa Walker - Small Town Sinners
Haley Tanner - Vaclav and Lena
Haruki Murakami - Kafka On the Shore
Thanks! Your recommendation last time, Lauren Grodstein's 'Friend of the Family,' was fantastic.
Read it - I actually picked up Wolf Hall because it won the Tournament of Books, which is how I heard about Goon Squad.
Time's Arrow, by Martin Amis
Pursued by Furies: A Life of Malcolm Lowry, by Gordon Bowker
Matterhorn, by Carlos Marlantes
Something Happened, by Joseph Heller
The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
Bent Road (Roy)
Remarkable Creatures (Chevalier)
The Vanishing of Katharina Linden (Grant)
American Wife (Sittenfeld)
The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S. (Lustig)
Thanks!
Arkansas by John Brandon
Fever Chart by Bill Cotter
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
What is the What by Dave Eggers
Midnight's Children (Rushdie)
The Postman always Rings Twice (Cain)
Consider the Lobster (Wallace)
Killer Angels (Shaara)
True Grit (Portis)
The Girl on the Fridge - Etgar Kerat
Sum: Forty tales from the after - David Eagleman
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman
Paris Trout - Pete Dexter
Sleepwalking Land - Mia Couto
What an awesome idea. Thanks for doing this. Can't wait to hear what you suggest :)
In The Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing
Teaching a Stone To Talk by Annie Dillard
Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Danzy Senna
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Glover's Mistake- Nick Laird
Don't Cry- Mary Gaitskill
This is Where I Leave You- Jonathan Tropper
Lincoln's Melancholy- Joshua Wolf Shenk
The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
The Slap (Tsiolkas)
The Imperfectionists (Rachman)
The Help (Stockett)
An Arrow's Flight (Merlis)
The Lonely Polygamist (Udall)
(plus the Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore
@Emily C. (Looks like everyone’s reading The Imperfectionists): The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender
Thank you, Biblioracle! I'm moving this to the top of my to-read list. Your recommendations are always great.
I also love seeing what interesting things everybody else is reading. Have you thought about turning this into a literary dating service? Just kidding... (???!!)
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Egan
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - Mitchell
The Tiger's Wife - Obreht
Perfume - Suskind
Never Let Me Go - Isiguro
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemmingway
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
The Diviners - Margaret Laurence
No Great Mischief - Alistair MacLeod
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen
thank you :)
The Winter Without Milk -- Jane Avrich
Nox -- Anne Carson
Against Love -- Laura Kipnis
A Visit from the Goon Squad -- Jennifer Egan
Arthurian Romances -- Chretien de Troyes
Thank you!
@Patricia: The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
@Matthew: Oranges - John McPhee
@Ralph - Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
@Angela Chen: Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
@Blake West: Lamb - Christopher Moore
@Carly: Cruddy - Lynda Barry
@Luis Correa: The Brief History of the Dead - Kevin Brockmeier
@Marcy: I see you just read some Stephenson, but I think you should tackle - Reamde - Neal Stephenson
@Manders: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
@Shawn: Our recent reads look almost identical, Eat the Document - Dana Spiotta
@Rabbitsnake: The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon
@JP: The Dart League King - Keith Morris
@Kyle: The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
@Martha Burzynski - Stoner - John Williams
@Nick: The Funnies - J. Robert Lennon
@Casey: Luminarium - Alex Shakar
@Rhiannon: Bad Marie - Marcy Dermansky
@AJ: Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
History of Luminous Motion - Scott Bradfield
Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey
The Instructions - Adam Levin
Great House - Nicole Krauss
The Search for WondLa - Tony DiTerlizzi
The Complete Sherlock Holmes vol. I & II - Arthur Conan Doyle
A Dance with Dragons - George R.R. Martin
Fatherland - Robert Harris
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
My book club's last five selections:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot
Peter Pan, Barrie
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Muueenuddin
A Confederacy of Dunces, Toole
Ragtime, Doctorow
Much obliged sir.
Island Beneath the Sea - Isabel Allende
Brandwashed - Martin Lindstrom
White Woman on the Green Bicycle - Monique Roffey
The Lotus Eaters - Tatjana Soli
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
The Lost Books of the Odyssey -- Zachary Mason
Kafka: Diaries
Early Greek Philosphers ed. by Jonathan Barnes
The Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins
Extinction -- Thomas Bernhard
@Emily Elizabeth: Swamplandia - Karen Russell
I actually really enjoyed St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (mostly that short story itself). I'm excited to see she has a full novel, I'll have to go find it – thank you!
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
Year of the Floor, Margaret Atwood
Paris of Appalachia, Brian O'Neil
The Fates will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard
By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
Sex and the River Styx - Edward Hoagland
The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
@Daver: Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
@Kay: Possession - A.S. Byatt
@Gina C.: The Last Samurai - Helen Dewitt
@Nicole: Seriously out of my dept with this list. The Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K LeGuin
@David: The Adults - Allison Espach
@Vicky (trying again) - The Intuitionist - Colson Whitehead
@Tyler: Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
@Desi: The Astral - Kate Christensen
@Kip: Everything Matters! - Ron Currie Jr.
@Ben: 52 Pickup - Elmore Leonard
@Swati Prasad - Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald
@Isaac: The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
@Peter Birkenhead: A Friend of the Family - Lauren Grodstein
@ZRW: So Much Pretty - Cara Hoffman
@Claire: My New American Life - Francine Prose
@Lauren R.: We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
@Samara: Taking a book from the list right above you. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
@John Warner:
Very astute. I read "Ripley" this Spring and it was partly my enjoyment of it that lead to "The Big Clock."
Yours,
Isaac
Moby Dick
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
East of Eden
Everything by John McPhee
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
I think Cat's Cradle was actually the book I read just before The Sun Also Rises. One of my favorites. Thanks!
Flynn, Memorial Day
Flynn, Act of Treason
Frey, The Chairman
Frey, The Protege
Crichton, Next
Stranger in a Strange Land: read it and loved it, spot on!
@Josh: The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes
@PGH David: Middlemarch - George Eliot
@Jason R: Great House - Nicole Krause
@Marie: Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
@Mark Doten: The Funny Man - John Warner (Ha! big joke everyone. Mark Doten is my editor. He's read the book so many times I'm sure he's sick of it.) But seriously, folks: Nightwood - Djuna Barnes
@Cassidy: The Lonely Polygamist - Brady Udall
@Mark: Big Machine - Victor Lavalle
Okay, anyone below this, I'll have to get you next time. Anyone above this message, if I haven't gotten yet, I'm doubling back right now.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Dune by Frank Herbert
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
So Brave, Young and Handsome by Leif Engert
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
John Adams, by David McCullough
Doc, by Mary Doria Russell
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
The Pursuer, by Louis Golding
Roseanna, by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Thank you!
@Isaac: Trying again. The Hunt Club - Bret Lott
@Martin Connelly: Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
@Daver: backup recommendation: A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
@Mark S: The Tourist (not related to the Johnny Depp movie) - Olen Steinhauer
@AJ: Trying again - The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Okay, just two leftovers, so I'll hit you up, yo.
@AFO: Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut (Someone will be reading Cat's Cradle!)
@JD: Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
Okay, that really is all folks. Please do take a look at The Funny Man, like all books, it's not for everyone, but it might be for you. I'll be doing some east coast readings in NYC, Boston, DC, Charlottesville, Chapel-Hill and Raleigh Durham. I'd be happy to Biblioracle you in person, if I see you on the road. Sign up at @biblioracle to receive the deets.
Outie.
@John Warner,
Thank you for taking time to make a second recommendation! I don't know it and I will check it out, along with your book.
@John Warner,
Yikes -- was stuck in Central Time -- you're very kind!
Thank you.
Infinite Jest. DFW
Confederacy of Dunces. John Kennedy Toole
In Cold Blood. Truman Capote
Glass Bead Game. Herman Hesse
Gentlemen on the Road. Michael Chabon
Thanks for the suggestion!
And thanks to all the other commenters too, lots of books to peruse and add to the reading list.