Reading Is in the Air
From 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET today, tell the Biblioracle the last five books you’ve read, and he’ll recommend your next favorite novel.
Fall is here (not for me, I live in Charleston), and the weather drives us (again, not me) inside. Nights are longer, and television can provide only limited comfort. NBC’s new sitcoms are somewhere between plain terrible and rage-inducing, and the season premier of Community has been delayed indefinitely. That show with Mrs. Coach from Friday Night Lights and the girl from Heroes seems pretty good, but the jury is still out on that one. Game of Thrones doesn’t return until 2013.
We’ve had a big spate of Fall releases, but maybe you’ve already read your Smith, Chabon, and Díaz, or maybe you don’t want to run with the pack, but don’t know which direction to go.
For you, The Biblioracle is here, and will be taking requests from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time. List the last five books you’ve read, in the comments, and the Biblioracle will tell you what to read next. All requests posted in that time window will be honored, unless things get just totally crazy, and you break Disqus with the volume of posts, and my brain melts down.
List the last five books you’ve read, and the Biblioracle tells you what to read next.
The Biblioracle will be open today from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET. These comments are now closed.
150 comments
We're off.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman (a former Biblioracle rec that I tore through and enjoyed.)
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies. It's the first of a trilogy, so get ready for lots of reading.
I belong to 3 book groups and run one of them; I don't have time for lots of reading!
Funny story about this recommendation. During the last Biblioracle session, you recommended the Davies trilogy in toto to my husband, and I recent found a good used copy. So it's on his shelf, and we'll see who gets to it first!
Many thanks. I love when you do this.
Pict Pict Pict Pict Pict Pict Orientation : and other stories / Daniel Orozco. Every love story is a ghost story : a life of David Foster Wallace / D.T. Max. Hold it 'til it hurts : a novel / T. Geronimo Johnson. Talking to the dead : a novel / Harry Bingham. Gjenferd. English
The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury
Consider the Lobster - DFW
Steppenwolf - Hesse
A Childhood - Harry Crews
Factotum - Bukowski
The Devil's Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea
Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
Welcome back -- just in the nick of time!
Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
I Married You for Happiness - Lily Tuck
Young Miles - Lois Bujold
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
Someone gets this one every time. Geek Love - Katharine Dunn
I've been waiting for a return of The Biblioracle.
Here are the five books I've read I've read most recently:
1. The Belly of Paris, Emile Zola
2. The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
3. Life Itself, Roger Ebert
4. Just My Type, Simon Garfield
5. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me, Mindy Kaling
I look forward to your insight!
Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
Thanks so much!
Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce
Satantango - Laszlo Krasznahorkai
The Story of Junk - Linda Yablonsky
Bad Behavior - Mary Gaitskill
Naomi - Jun'ichiro Tanazaki
Number 9 Dream - David Mitchell
Thanks for doing this again! Here are my last five, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
Let's Pretend This Never Happened (Lawson)
Consider Phlebas (Banks)
The Last Starfighter (Foster)
Illuminatus! (Shea & Wilson)
Redshirts (Scalzi)
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You might have
read this, but I'm going with it anyway, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
You might have
read this, but I'm going with it anyway, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
This is How You Lose Her - Diaz
Telegraph Avenue - Chabon
The Visible Man - Klosterman
Life - Richards
The Girl w. the Dragon Tattoo - Larsson
Open City -
Teju Cole
Spooner by Pete Dexter
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Pulphead by John J Sullivan
Shadow Country - Peter Mathiessen
Awesome, thank you!
Pulphead - Sullivan
The Little Sister - Chandler
Great Expectations - Dickens
Young Men and Fire - MacLean
More Baths, Less Talking - Hornby
Invaluable resource, thanks as always.
The Twenty-Year Death - Ariel Winter
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
Ready Player One (forgot that one earlier)
Transmetropolitan, Warren Elllis
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross
The Rook - Daniel O'Malley
Does poetry qualify for this?
Absolutely
Great! My last five:
Timothy Donnelly - The Cloud Corporation
Nick Thran - Earworm
Mina Loy - The Lost Lunar Baedeker
Mark Nowak - Shut Up, Shut Down
Kenneth Koch - When the Sun Tries to Go On
My Last Five Books:
Swamplandia! —Karen Russell
The Pale King —David
Foster Wallace
Selected Stories
—Alice
Munro
Are You My Mother? —Alison Bechdel
A Hologram For The King —Dave Eggers
Let's go with something not so recent: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
Orientation : and other stories / Daniel Orozco. Every love story is a ghost story : a life of David Foster Wallace / D.T. Max. Hold it 'til it hurts : a novel / T. Geronimo Johnson. Talking to the dead : a novel / Harry Bingham. Phantom/Jo NesboThank you!
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The Descendants - Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Billy Bathgate - E.L. Doctorow
Sinclair Lewis: Go East, Young Man
Nick Hornby: Juliet, Naked
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
Joe Meno: Office Girl
Richard Wright: Native Son
A Friend of the Family - Lauren Grodstein
1. Say Nice Things About Detroit - Scott Lasser
2. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
3. The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt
4. The Black Prism - Brent Weeks
5. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Thanks so much! I really enjoyed The Funny Man and benefit from your reading suggestions all the time!
Spooner by Pete Dexter
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Pulphead by John J Sullivan
Think I got this one upthread.
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe - Charles Yu
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood - James Glieck
The White Album - Joan Didion
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
- Thanks!
The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean
Here are my latest 5 books, most recent first: 11/22/63, by Stephen King; The Voluntourist, by Ken Budd; The Hobbit, JRR Tolkein; The Innocents, Francesca Segal; Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk. What's next? Thank you!
Up from the Blue - Susan Henderson
Thank you! This is the first time I've caught up with you, and I have been delighted to follow these posts!
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
Saturday - Ian McEwan
The Descendants - Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Got this one up thread.
Lisa See, The interior
Richard Castle, Heat Rises
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Give
George R.R. Martin, Storm of Swords
Lois McMaster Bujold, Young Miles
Wild, Cheryl Strayed
Goodbye Without Leaving - Laurie Colwin
The Boy Kings of Texas
Born to Run
The Fear Index
The Faithful Spy
What it Was
The Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow
·
Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Salman Rushdie
·
Under the Banyan Tree, Vaddey Ratner
·
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and
the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American
History, by S. C. Gwynne
·
India: The Road Ahead by Mark Tully
·
Crawling: A Father's First Year, Elisha
Cooper
We the Animals - Justin Torres
Also from most to least recent!
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Office Girl by Joe Meno
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub
Arcadia - Lauren Groff
Thanks!
This is my first time catching the Biblioracle! Very exciting.
Tiny Beautiful Things - Cheryl Strayed
The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony and other short works - Franz Kafka
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Evening - Susan Minot
How Should a Person Be - Sheila Heti
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
Broken Harbour by Tana French
Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Familiar, J. Robert Lennon
The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
Kabul Beauty School, Deborah Rodriguez
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
last 5 books (I've highly enjoyed):
Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand
Collected Poems of Czeslaw Milosz
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle
The Worst Date Ever by Jane Bussman
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
currently reading - Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
last five finished: Donna Tartt - The Secret HistoryCaitlin Moran - How to be a womanKatherine Dunn - Geek Love (recommended by you to my friend during the last round, crazy book)Joan Didion - Play it as it laysDavid Mitchell - Thousand Autumns of Jacob de ZoetThank you!
yikes, sorry about the formatting there, not sure how that happened
Old Filth - Jane Gardam
Jane Smiley - Moo
Robin Sloan - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Evan S. Connell - Mrs. Bridge
Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr. Ripley
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque
Thanks!
I'm going on a limb here, but what the heck: The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
I haven't read anything by Pynchon before, so this is as good excuse as any to give it a go. Thanks again!
Wonderful!
Faithful Place (Tana French)
Bridge of Sighs (Richard Russo)
Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stegner)
The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (Michael Chabon)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler
Crazed by Ha Jin
The Beggars Garden by Michael Christie
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Jerusalem The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Night circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey
"The Last Werewolf" Glen Duncan
"The Nine" Jeffrey Toobin
"19Q4" Haruki Murakami
"Moby Dick" Herman Melville
"Storm of Swords" George RR Martin
Drood - Dan Simmons
The Magician King, Lev Grossman
The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi
The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson
These books do not necessarily represent my typical reading preferences (i.e. I'm not actually 14 years old ), but do your worst.
The City & The City - China Mieville
I was hoping for something more obscure, but thanks!
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
Super Sad True Love Story - Gary Shteyngart
The Big Short - Michael Lewis
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Your recommendation comes of the list just above. The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson.
Note to self: Might be fun to do that sometime, that each person gets passed a book from the previous poster's list.
Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter - Steven Rinella
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story - DT Max
Hologram for the King - Eggers
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival - John Valliant
Shards - Ismet Prcic
U.S.! - Chris Bachelder
Hiya! From most recent to least:
1. John Dies at the End - Wong
2. Bring up the Bodies - Mantel
3. Wolf Hall - Mantel
4. American Gods - Gaiman
5. Daughters of Rome - Quinn
Thanks!
Zombie - J.R. Angelella
A Brilliant Novel in the Works, Yuvi Zalkow
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain
Inside, Alix Ohlin
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell
Gain, Richard Powers
Thanks, Bib.
The World Without You - Joshua Henkin
Love the Biblioracle!! Here are my last 5:
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Beggar's Garden - Michael Christie
Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Night Watch-Sarah Waters
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
A Dance with Dragons - George RR MArtin
Good Wives -- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Almost Amish -- Nancy Sleeth
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (for the millionth time) -- Betty Smith
Audition -- Barbara Walters
Mrs. Bridge - Evan Connell
"The Sun Also Rises" – Hemingway
"Seagull Jonathan Livingston" – Richard Bach
"The Sea–Wolf" – Jack London
"On Beauty" – Zadie Smith
"The Women" – T.C. Boyle
The Orcharist - Amanda Koplin
1. Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
2. The Fault in our Stars, John Green
3. Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
4. Paper Towns, John Green
5. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs
Room - Emma Donoghue
Most recent to least recent:
1. Robin Sloan, "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore"
2. Stephen Greenblatt, "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern"
3. Steven Millauser, "We Others: New and Selected Stories"
4. David Mitchell, "Cloud Atlas"
5. Philip K. Dick, "Ubik"
In the Lake of the Woods - Tim O'Brien
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Every Day a Friday by Joel Osteen
An Uncommon Education by Elizabeth Percer
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey
Thanks so much.
Shine, Shine, Shine - Lydia Netzer
Thanks so much.
Galveston by Nic Pizzolato
All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki
By a Slow River (Grey Souls) by Phillipe Claudel
Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett
Broken Harbor by Tana French
A Drink Before the War - Dennis Lehane
Thanks! I'll check this out!
Proxopera, Benedict Kiely
Fatale, J. P. Manchette
Troubles, J. G. Farrell
The Verificationist
The Land at the End of the World, Antonio Lobo Antunes
Camouflage - Murray Bail
The Magicians (Lev Grossman)
The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
Wallflowers (Michael Donaghy)
Imaginary Homelands (Salman Rushdie)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoi)
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafron
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
NW by Zadie Smith
Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita
Things That Are by Amy Leach
Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco
The Book of Evidence - John Banville
Henderson the Rain King - Bellow
Satan is Real - Charlie Louvin
The Intuitionist - Whitehead
Crying of Lot 49 - Pynchon
Middlemarch - Eliot
Mumbo Jumbo - Ishmael Reed
Paris I love you but you're bringing me down
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Fault in Our Stars
Ready Player One
Open City
Agaat - Marlene Van Niekirk
Starting with the most recent:
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Excession, by Iain M. Banks
Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman
The No Asshole Rule, by Robert Sutton
(Those last two are non-fiction, so if these need to be all novels, the two novels before that were Leviathan Wakes by James Corey and Starbound by Joe Haldeman.)
Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Marukami
1. This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
2. A Sand Country Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
3. Candide, by Voltaire
4. The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon
5. Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh
Journey to the End of Night - Celine
Telegraph Avenue- Chabon
At Swim Two Birds
- O’Brien
Martin Dressler – Millhouser
The Intuitionist – Whitehead
The Rachel Papers – Amis
Thanks!
Changing Places - David Lodge
Neil Gaiman - American Gods.
Last five books I've read:
Lene Kaaberbol, The Boy in the Suitcase
William Manchester, A World Lit Only By Fire
Robert Walser, The Assistant
John Harlin III, The Eiger Obsession
Tove Jansson, The Summer Book
Last two novels before that were:
Jean-Philippe Toussaint, The Bathroom
Philip Dick, The Man in the High Castle
Foe - J.M. Coetzee
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott
The Serpent's Shadow, Rick Riordan
Beloved - Toni Morrison
John is having some technical issues, but he'll respond to everyone who gets their request in by 2:30 ET.
Wolf Hall - Hillary Mantel
Scoop - Evelym Waugh
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje
In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje
The Sweet Hereafter - Russell Banks
Don carpenter's, "A couple of Comedians."
"Space Race," a history of the cold war's space competing space exploration teams.
"Whirlaway," a small press book from the 70s about a couple of boat rats that scam their way into a small yacht.
The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
Low Moon by Jason
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
Drown by Junot Diaz
A Pocketful of Rye by A.J. Cronin
Thanks!
A Sport and a Pastime - James Salter
If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History - Florence Williams
City of Bohane - Kevin Barry
Sabriel - Garth Nix
The Children's Hospital - Chris Adrian
Thank you! And sorry about the wonky formatting.
Reflections in a Golden Eye, Carson McCullers
NW, Zadie Smith
February House, Sheryl Tippets
Dead Stars, Bruce Wagner
Swimming Studies, Leanne Shapton
Among the Dead - Michael Tolkin
John Banville--ANCIENT LIGHT
Timothy Egan--SHORT NIGHTS OF THE SHADOW CATCHER
Per Petterson--IT'S FINE BY ME
Robin Sloane--MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE
Richard Beard--LAZARUS IS DEAD
That's Not a Feeling - Dan Josefson
Okay, I'm back. Sorry for the delay. Everyone above this place marker will get a recommendation. If you're too late for this round, you can always email me at biblioracle@gmail:disqus .com and put in a request and you may even be featured in my weekly column for the Printers Row Book supplement, now available as a digital edition.
https://myaccount2.chicagot...
Hologram for the King
1Q84
Mockingjay
Hot Pink
This is How You Lose Her
Sorry,I'm late but was thinking this was central time
Blueprints of the Afterlife - Ryan Boudinot
Okay - here we go:
1. Blood Meridian
2. Girl With Curious Hair
3. Visit From the Goon Squad
4. Wittgenstein's Mistress
5. Everything and More
JR - William Gaddis
A little late, but here goes, most recent first:
Primeval and Other Times - Olga Tokarczuk
Lightning Rods - Helen Dewitt
But for the Lovers - Wilfrido Nolledo
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story - DT Max
The Devil in Silver - Victor LaValle
The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano