The Return of the Biblioracle
The Biblioracle will be open today from noon to 2 p.m. Still recovering from an outpouring of requests during his last appearance, the Biblioracle will take the last five books you read and tell you what to read next.
Still more questions for, and answers from, the Biblioracle:
That first installment of the Biblioracle was quite something, wasn’t it? Boy howdy! Better than 400 in three hours by my reckoning. It was simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting.
Were you surprised by the outpouring of requests for book recommendations? Sort of, yes, but then on further reflection, not really.
Come on! Don’t you know that reading is dying, that the internet has fried our attention spans so they’re crispier than the KFC Double Down? That all we thirst for is connection, connection, connection, bouncing from byte to byte? Why on Earth would so many people want to be told what they should read? Here’s the thing. The prophets of deep-thinking doom are failing to recognize that the book (whatever form it comes in) remains a one-of-a-kind piece of technology, the only virtual reality experience currently available.
How do you mean, virtual reality? Isn’t that more like 3D movies or video games? Release the Kraken! It’s kind of amazing when that shit pops off the screen like that, isn’t it? The Biblioracle saw Avatar just like the rest of the world and holy moly that was some amazing stuff. In fact, during the movie, the Biblioracle spent some time watching the other moviegoers and what he noticed is that in four out of five cases it looked as though their jaw muscles had atrophied, dropping their chins to their chests. In some cases, there might have been drool. I’ve heard we only use 10 percent of our brains. In this case, I would’ve put the number closer to three percent. Movies, even at their best, still primarily support passive intake.
Compare this to the experience of reading a book, where one’s brain is actually engaged. In an interview, George Saunders described the connection between reader and writer this way:
I think that what any of us pays for when entering into a reading experience is that feeling of seeing another mind at work, and not at work in a rational way. There’s something thrilling about seeing this other mind at work in this blissful and private and self-referential way, and then suddenly your mind joins it. How weird and inexplicable that is. There’s a sort of knowledge that goes beyond our mundane everyday knowledge. The reader and writer are being smarter together than either one could be separately. This is like a sort of experiential proof of the fact that our apparent separation is delusional.
When I finish a good book, it’s like emerging from a dream, a lovely fog over my brain.
When I walked out of Avatar, I had a migraine and a worthless pair of ugly glasses.
And as for the role video games play, let me recommend the incredible new book by Tom Bissell, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. He does an amazing job of demonstrating his subtitle, but also makes it clear how video games don’t yet (and maybe never will) replicate the experience of reading a good book. As anyone who has played them can tell you, video games can be every bit as immersive as books, but it seems to me that they immerse us in a different part of the old cranial pool.
That’s great and all, books are fantastic, blah blah blah, but what you’re doing isn’t all that special, is it? How do you mean?
Well, for instance, one of the commenters in this nice writeup from the Christian Science Monitor noted that Amazon offers the “here’s the books other people bought feature” saying that it’s the “same principle.” Obviously, this person is wrong. A relational database that just tells you what other people have purchased is a long way from recommending something that other people liked and more importantly, understand why someone might like it.
How about librarians, don’t they do the same thing, every day, for free? Now you’re on to something. Indeed, while the Biblioracle may have a gift for this kind of thing, a librarian is something even better, a trained professional. My grandmother worked as a librarian in the public and school systems of Rockford, Ill., for better than 50 years.
Since the Biblioracle only appears periodically and has to take to his bed for a full day following a bout of recommending, he wholeheartedly recommends making use of these people who work in just about every community across the land and are frequently underappreciated.
The Biblioracle recommended a book for me and I’d like to express my appreciation. How can I do this? The most important thing you can do is read the book and tell the Biblioracle how you liked it by emailing him at biblioracle@gmail.com. You could also follow the Biblioracle on Twitter. Once he reaches 100 followers he will endeavor to provide occasional, non-annoying book-related tweets in between his Biblioracle appearances.
I either missed out on the fun last time or forgot; how do I get a recommendation? Between the hours of noon and 2 p.m. ET today, list the last five books you read in the comments below and the Biblioracle will provide you with the next book you should read.
List the last five books you’ve read, and the Biblioracle tells you what to read next.
The Biblioracle will be open today, June 22, from noon to 2 p.m. ET. These comments are now closed.
244 comments
The Ask--Sam Lipsyte
Operation Mincemeat--Ben MacIntyre
The End of the Affair--Graham Greene
Solar--Ian McEwan
Never Let Me Go--Kazuo Ishiguro
Kings of Infinite Space - James Hynes
Swords Against Death, by Fritz Leiber
The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber, by Nicholson Baker
Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence, by Anne D. LeClaire
The Adventures of Captain Underpants, by Dav Pilkey
Swords & Wizardry Core Rulebook, by Matt Finch
Perdido Street Station - China Mieville
Caucasia, Danzy Senna
Good Omens, Gaiman/Pratchett
Valencia, Michelle Tea
Berlin Stories, Christopher Isherwood
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Histories, by Herodotus
Cicero, Anthony Everitt
Augustus, Anthony Everitt
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
Chuck Palahniuk - Tell All
Kenya Hara - White
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Jack Kerouac - Big Sur
William Burroughs - Ghost of Chance
Looking forward to this!
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Inner Circle - T.C. Boyle
Stoner - John Williams
Me Cheeta - James Lever
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Netherland - Joseph O'Neill
(Presumably something whose author's first name begins with a J...)
The Intuitionist – Colson Whitehead
Voyage Long and Strange - Tony Horwitz
History of Appalachia - Drake
The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox
On Liberty - John Stuart Mill
Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
Serena - Ron Rash
Thanks:
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel by Percival Everett
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Blame: A Novel by Michelle Huneven
Earth Vs. Everybody by John Swartzwelder
Among the Missing - Dan Chaon
Hello.
1)White Teeth, Zadie Smith
2)No Great Mischief, Alistair MacLeod
3)Summertime, J.M. Coetzee
4)Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller
5)Cockroach, Rawi Hage
Thanks.
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
Ann Patchett - Run
Neal Stephenson - Anathem
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Patrick Rothfuss - Name of the Wind
Thanks!
The Magus - John Fowles
A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold
Nature & Walking - Emerson & Thoreau
Blessed Unrest - Paul Hawken
Beyond the Sky and the Earth - Jamie Zeppa
Among Flowers - Jamacia Kincaid
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Citrus County by John Brandon
But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer
A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
Thanks!
Devil in the Details - Jennifer Traig
I'm not usually one for "issue" memoirs (addiction, cheating, bulimia) but, if you insist...
I think it'll surprise you with its atypical approach to said "issue."
The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
A Very Short Introduction to Wittgenstein by A.C. Grayling
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Thanks!
The Manual of Detectino - Jedediah Berry
The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Fool by Christopher Moore
Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters by Jane Austen with Ben H. Winters
Okay, this one is a risk, as a lot of people would hate this book, but I've got a feeling.
Help! A Bear Is Eating Me - Mykle Hansen
Rework by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson
Dark Summit by Nick Heil
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross
Money - Martin Amis
The Book of The New Sun (series) by Gene Wolfe
Berlin Noir (series) by Phillip Kerr
City & City by China Mieville
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin
Dresden by Frederick Taylor
The Tourist - Olen Steinhauer
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
Words in Air "by" Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (for the tenth time...at least...)
Thank you!
Ironweed - William Kennedy
The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay, 1989) (first half only)
The Spoils of Poynton (Henry James)
The Imperfectionists (Tom Rachman, 2010)
On Translation (Reuben A. Brower, ed., 1959)
Out of Sheer Rage (Geoff Dyer, 1997), in progress
The Financial Lives of Poets - Jess Walter
oops
I'm going to take a risk and go outside the apparent SF preference.
Rum Punch - Elmore Leonard
Back Story - Robert B. Parker
Changes - Jim Butcher
Doomsday - Connie Willis (reread)
Blackout - Connie Willis
Outlander series - Diana Gabaldon (Summer rereading)
Thanks much!
The Burning Wire - Jeffrey Deaver
Malice Prepense - Kate Wilhelm
Delivering Happiness - Tony Hsieh
U is for Undertow - Sue Grafton
Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
So glad you've recovered. Looking forward to your recommendation very much!
Last 5 books I've read:
Wicked byGregory Maguire
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The Women by TC Boyle
Stormy Weather by Paulette Jiles
Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
(and a kicker should you want one: am half way through The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender)
The Colony - Jillian Weise
The Last Child
The Cold Dish
A Night Too Dark
206 Bones
Three Cups of Tea (again)
Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese
Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
Virgin Suicides By Jeffrey Eugenides
You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin
Now, how come you've gotten a copy of You Lost Me There, but I haven't?
Doubles - Nic Brown
An angelic street vendor sold me an advance copy.
And thanks, I'll check out Doubles.
The Singer's Gun, Emily Mandel
Citrus County, John Brandon
Medium Raw, Anthony Bourdain
An Object Of Beauty, Steve Martin
I am Number Four, James Frey or whatever his dumb pen name is
This one might seem a little odd, but I've got confidence you'll enjoy it.
Wooden Boats: In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard by Michael Ruhlman
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
100% by Paul Pope
The Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell
A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain
Victory by Joseph Conrad
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Kraken, China Miéville
The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick, Elizabeth Hardwick
Granta: Sex, John Freeman, ed
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larsson
Parrot and Olivier in America, Peter Carey
Fellow Travelers - Thomas Mallon
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie
Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Five Skies - Ron Carlson
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
What Am I Doing Here? by Bruce Chatwin
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
(I am also sorting through Best American Travel Writing series)
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larssen
Signifying Rappers by David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello
Everything Matters! - Ron Currie Jr.
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacgialupi (sp?)
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
I'm a return customer. Enjoyed the last one very much. Thanks!
1)The Ask- Sam Lipsyte
2)The Great Gatsby- Fitzgerald
3)Persepolis- Marjane Satrapi
4)A Room with a View- E.M. Forester
5)Shades of Grey- Jasper Fforde
The Solitude of Prime Numbers - Paolo Giordano
Dangerous Laughter by Steven Milhauser
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Steig Larssen
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larssen
(counted as one book)
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
The Turnaround by George Pelecanos
Lush Life - Richard Price
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
The Skating Rink, Roberto Bolano
Senselessness, Horatio Moya
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Th Discovery of Heaven, Harry Mulisch
Deliverance - James Dickey
Stan Still Like a Hummingbird, Henry Miller
Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook
Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990, Charles Bukowski
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, PHilip K Dick
Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges.
Great Gatsby Graphic Novel, Nicki Greenberg
Recommended it to someone else above, but I think it works here too:
The Manual of Detection - Jedediah Berry
Looks interesting, I'll keep your recommendation on mind . Thanks John.
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
Notes form the Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - J.S. Foer
Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
Nothing Right by Antonya Nelson
The Four Loves by CS Lewis
Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Marie Rilke
Stoner - John Williams
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Known to Evil by Walter Mosley
The Long Fall by Walter Mosley
Breath by Tim Winton
Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker
The Dream of Perpetual Motion - Dexter Palmer
Thanks !
From oldest to most recent
Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples (all four volumes)
Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee (edited by Robert E. Lee Jr)
Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian
Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Krist Tippett's Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit
Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes
1984 by George Orwell
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Girl Who Kick the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Children's Novel by AS Byatt
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for His Hat by Oliver Sacks
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
That is such a good call, but I already read (and loved!) Cloud Atlas. Also have Mitchell's new one on my list... Any other idears?
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Marukami
Ha! Read that, too. But I am impressed with your abilities biblioracle!
Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer
Reflections on Violence, Georges Sorel
Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Freidman
Sniper on the Eastern Front, Josef "Sepp" Allerberger
Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
Whitley Streiber, Communion
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Beasts of No Nation - Uzodinma Iweala
Ghostwritten, David Mitchell
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell
Into Thin Air, Krakuer
And the Band Played On, Shilts
Wuthering Heights
How about more narrative nonfiction?
Damages - Barry Werth
Under The Volcano - Malcom Lowry
The Lady In The Lake - Raymond Chandler
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Rum Diary - Hunter Thompson
Thanks!
The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
The Stieg Larson Trilogy
I, Claudius & Claudius The God, Robert Graves
1491, Charles C. Mann
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann
Love & Summer, William Trevor
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
The Road - McCarthy
Narrow Road to the Interior - Basho
A Catskill Eagle - Parker
Eating Animals - jonathan safran foer
The Battle for the Falklands - Hastings and Jenkins
Thanks!
Pronto - Elmore Leonard
Oooh fun! Don't judge the Stieg!
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest - Stieg Larson
The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
2666 - Roberto Bolano
The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt
You Shall Know Our Velocity/Sacrament, Eggers
The Lost City of Z, Grann
Cannery Row, Steinbeck
Martin Dressler, Millhauser
In the Lake of the Woods, O'Brien
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
1. The Privileges, Jonathan Dee
2. Tom Beldam, George Hagen
3. The Forever War, Dexter Filkins
4. Dart League King, Keith Lee Morris
5. The Power Broker, Robert Caro
Fever Chart - Bill Cotter
Murasaki Shikibu - The Tale of Genji
George Orwell - Animal Farm
D.H. Lawrence - Women In Love
Martin Amis - Money
Jane Austen - Emma
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
Blonde - Joyce Carol Oats.
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon - David Grann
Desperate Networks - Bill Carter
The Friday Night Knitting Club - Kate Jacobs
The Tattooed Map - Barbara Hodgson
(Really looking forward to discovering new books; thank you!)
Blame - Michelle Huneven
And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Gun, with Ocassional Music by Jonathan Lethem
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
The Marvelous Adventure of Cabeza de Vaca by Haniel Long
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer
Going in Circles - Pamela Ribon
The English American - Allison Larkin
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz
The Accidental - Ali Smith
The Summer We Fell Apart - Robin Antalek
1) the Your Face Tomorrow series - Javier Marías
2) Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel) - Macedonio Fernández
3) Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi - Geoff Dyer
4) Home Boy - H.M. Naqvi
5) Pornografia - Witold Gombrowicz
Kapitoil - Teddy Wayne
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
N or M, Agatha Christie
The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Sebastian Faulks
The Sacred and Profane Love Machine, Iris Murdoch
Stormy Petrel, Mary Stewart
Possession - A.S. Byatt
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Race and Reunion by David Blight
Game Change by Mark Halperin
What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills
Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester
Another one who should read:
Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes
The Religious Sense- Guissani
When I was Mortal - Javier Marias
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Girl Who Played with Fire - Larson
Letter to a Young Poet - Rilke
Housekeeping - Marilynn Robinson
Hitch 22 - Christopher Hitchens
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Phillip Pullman
Peter & Max - Bill Willingham
Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Letham
Drop City - T.C. Boyle
1) The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt
2) The Anthologist - Nicholson Baker
3) Await Your Reply - Dan Chaon
4) Changing My Mind - Zadie Smith
5) The City & the City - China Mieville
Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri
(Don't let the fact that it's a collection of stories dissuade you.)
Of course not, I love collections! Thanks!
1) Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky
2) Leviathan, Paul Auster
3) The Jaguar Smile, Salman Rushdie
4) Point Omega, Don Delillo
5) The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell.
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Marukami
Thanks! Never read Marukami before despite friends recommendations.
Crosscut - Meg Gardiner
Atlantis Rising - Alyssa Day
Slave to Sensation - Nalini Singh
Elegy Beach - Steven Boyett
Reliquary - Douglas Preston
I am way out of my depth here, but I'll take a shot.
Finch - Jeff VanderMeer
Thank you! Having fun seeing what others are reading too
Breakable You - Brian Morton
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
Tinkers - Paul Harding
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Adichie
The Ha-Ha - Dave King
Prescription for a Superior Existence - Josh Emmons
9 Stories - J. D. Salinger
Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall
House Of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
Angel Dust Apocalypse - Jeremy Robert Johnson
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks
The Manual of Detection - Jedediah Berry
(Yes, I read this recently, so it's at the front of my mind.)
Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
The Elegance and the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Superworse by Ben Greenman
Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers
Genesis by Bernhard Beckett
Things We Didn’t See Coming – Steven Amsterdam
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Stieg Larson
How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six Months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment, Gregory Levey
Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
(N.b., You do mean to ask for the last five books we "liked" right?)
Not necessarily liked, but liked is fine. It's enough to just know what you're choosing for yourself. The Biblioracle handles quality control.
It's the buzz book of the summer, which makes me hesitate to recommend it, but I think you'd dig:
The Passage - Justin Cronin
a Man Without a Coutnry - Kurt Vonnegut
the Painted Veil - Maugham
Let the Right One In - J.A. Lindqvst
Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Against Interpretation - Sontag
Journey to the End of Night - Celine
Somewhere Else, Shenoda
Life of Pi, Martel
excerpt from Being and Nothingness, Sartre
excertp from The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Symposium by Plato
Mailman - J. Robert Lennon
Eugene Marten, Firework
Wallace Shawn, The Fever
Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
Vollmann, Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Already Dead - Denis Johnson
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself - David Lipsky
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto - David Shields
The Complete Stories - Franz Kafka
After Theory - Terry Eagleton
Everybody who has read Reality Hunger should read some Sebald afterward. Start with:
Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald
W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn
John McPhee, Rising from the Plains
Lisa Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip
Gabriel Gudding, Rhode Island Notebook
Anne Carson, Nox
About a Mountain - John D'Agata
(I'm excited about this one. I think it's a home run.)
Thank you, John! I can't wait to request it from the library! What a stellar service you offer.
Blood Meridian - Cormac Mcarthy
The high castle - Philip K dick
Celtic mythology - (something from the late 19th century)
The Power broker - robert caro
Chapterhouse Dune - Frank Herbert
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps - Edited by Otto Penzler
The Man with the Golden Gun - Ian Fleming
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
The Delta Factor - Mickey Spillane
The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff
Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
World War Z - Max Brooks
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower
Bleak House - Dickens
Model Home - Eric Puchner
Civilwarland in Bad Decline, George Saunders
Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolano
The Night in Question, Tobias Wolff
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
The Jew of Home Depot, Max Apple
Edwin Mullhouse - Steven Millhauser
A Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2 by Larry Gonick
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Scott Pilgrim Vol. 2 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Bloody Confused! by Chuck Culpepper
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Reif Larson
Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield
Garlic and Sapphires:The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, Ruth Reichl
Tulsa Kid, Ron Padgett
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, Richard Farina
The House of Tomorrow - Peter Bognanni
Between the Bridge and the River - Craig Ferguson
This Earth of Mankind - Pramoeda Ananta Toer
The Odyssey - Homer
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Book of Night Women - Marlon James
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Long for This World - Sonya Chung
Dune - Frank Herbert
Juliet Naked - Nick Hornby
Neuromancer - William Gibson
A Friend of the Earth - T.C. Boyle
Look at the Birdie - Kurt Vonnegut
Alentejo Blue - Monica Ali
Ooga Booga - Frederick Seidel
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
The Plague of Doves - Louise Erdrich
Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
Psychogeography - Will Self
The Vicious Circulation of Dr Catastrope - Kane X. Faucher
Zombie: A Memoir - Robin Becker
Dora - Sigmund Freud
The Voice of the Fire - Alan Moore
You also might as well give in to the hype and try:
The Passage - Justin Cronin
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roché
Jazz by Toni Morrison
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Fermata by Nicolson Baker
The Invisible Bridge - Julie Orringer
Big Hair & Plastic Grass - Dan Epstein
The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey
1491 - Charles Mann
Invisible - Paul Auster
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
Game Change - John Heilemann, Mark Halpern
Powers 9: Psychotic - Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Avon Oeming
Zeitoun - Dave Eggers
Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby
How to Steal an Armored Car - Iaian Levinson
The November Criminals - Sam Munson
Happy by Alex Lemon
Autobiography of an Execution by David Dow
Tinkers by Paul Harding
The Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnick
Hurry Down Sunshine - Michael Greenberg
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs -- Chuck Klosterman
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- Stieg Larsson
The Virgin Suicides -- Jeffrey Eugenides
Manhood for Amateurs -- Michael Chabon
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close -- Jonathan Safran-Foer
The Ask - Sam Lipsyte
Pick me! Pick me!
Once a Runner - John L. Parker
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Seth Grahame-Smith
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
Martin Dressler - Steven Millhauser
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine
Souls in the Great Machine by Sean Mcmullin
Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust
The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
What is the What by Dave Eggers
Inventing the Abbots by Sue Miller
Runaway by Alice Munro
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
Kristin Cashore-- Fire
Stephen King-- The Stand
Roberto Bolano-- 2666
Emily Giffin-- The Heart of the Matter
Tana French-- In the Woods
New World Monkeys - Nancy Mauro
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky (reread)
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Glass Bead Game - Hesse (reread)
A Passion for Friends - Janice Raymond
If you've read Fifth Business, you should go ahead and read the rest of the Deptford triliogy, but in addition to that, let me offer:
Small World - David Lodge
Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore
Another Country by James Baldwin
The Witches of Eastwick by Updike
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
Chip by Richard Moore
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
Wolf Hall
Dance, Dance, Dance
Specimen Days (by your recommendation--and I LOVED it)
The Inferno
Beowulf
Thank you so much! This is great!
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susannah Clarke
1984 - Orwell
Song of Ice and Fire series - Martin
Love is a Mix Tape - Sheffield
The Lie - Kultgen
Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut
This Is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper
Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
Rework by Jason Fried
Thirst No. 2: Phantom, Evil Thirst, Creatures of Forever by Christopher Pike
Generation Kill by Evan Wright
The 25th Hour - David Benioff
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
Misadventure - Millard Kaufman
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Unnamed - Joshua Ferris
The Best American Short Stories 2009 (collection)
The Zero - Jess Walter
I Am Legend (tp) -- Richard Matheson
This Noisy Egg -- Nicole Walker
The Corrections -- Jonathan Franzen
The Last Song -- Nicholas Sparks
Vices and Virtues --- James D. Wallace
This is a very confounding list.
Falling In Place - Ann Beattie
Changing my Mind, Zadie Smith
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Marukami
Tinkers, Paul Hardy
The Informers, Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, David Lipsky
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
Alas, Babylon - Pat Frank
When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
The Game of Their Lives - Geoffrey Douglas
Derby Girl - Shauna Cross
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami
The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To – D.C. Pierson
The Bridge by David Remnick
Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges
Into the Story by David Mariness
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Ford County by John Grisham
The World Made Straight - Ron Rash
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — Haruki Murakami
Blind WIllow, Sleeping Woman — Haruki Murakami
The Post-Birthday World — Lionel Shriver
A Gate at the Stairs — Lorrie Moore (granted, I didn't like this one)
In Defense of Food — Michael Pollan
The Known World - Edward P. Jones
Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon
The Invisible Bridge, Julie Orringer
Nothing Right, Antonya Nelson
Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender
100 Bullets - Brian Azzarello
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo
Rant - Chuck Palahniuk
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Sleepless - Charlie Houston
My Life in France - Julia Child
Cocktails for Three - Madeline Wickenham
The Help - Kathryn Stockett
The Lost Art of Gratitude - Alexander McCall Smith
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Good in Bed - Jennifer Weiner
Wait, does that mean my reading list makes me look fat? ;)
Thanks! I'll check it out.
The Truth About Celia, Kevin Brockmeier
Next, James Hynes
A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore
And Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
The Collected Stories, Amy Hempel
36 Arguments for the Existence of God - Rebecca Goldstein
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace
Tales, HP Lovecraft
Low Life, Luc Sante
What is the What, Dave Eggers
Wilson!, Daniel Clowes
Emporium - Adam Johnson
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman
The Recognitions - William Gaddis
Old School - Tobias Wolff
The End of the Road - John barth
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
Remembering Ahanagran Richard White
The Art of Conversation Catherine Blyth
Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Brontes: A Life in Letters Juliet Barker
pilgrim's progress john bunyan
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb
My Fine Feathered Friend by William Grimes
The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
The omnivore's Dilemma
A Year of Living Biblically
Assassination vacation
Cash- Johnny Cash
ury y Heart At Wounded Knee
Sorry...Should be "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" and "The Year of Living Biblically"
Fraud - David Rakoff
Alrighty. Due to other pressing duties (hunger). I've got to call it a book recommending day. I'll make sure to post responses to everyone who got in a request before this message. Otherwise, don't fret, the Biblioracle shall return soon. Don't forget the Twitter signup, if you're so inclined: @biblioracle.
Kudos-Good in Bed an excellent suggestion for me. But. Already read it.
The Hole We're In by Gabrielle Zevin
The Retrieval Artist by Kristine Kathryn Rush
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy
Alright, one more before they shut down the comments
A Friend of the Family - Lauren Grodstein
The Gift
The Other Side of Desire
Ad Nauseam
Letters From New Orleans
What He's Poised to Do
The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
I Was Told There'd Be Cake, Sloan Crosley
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
The Color of Water, James McBride
The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold
Everyman - Philip Roth
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Oh the Glory of it All - Sean Wilsey
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami
Boundaries-When to Say Yes, When to Say No To Take Control Of Your Life
The Anubis Gates
The Club Dumas
Jesus by Deepak Chopra
Safe People How To Find Relationships That Are Good For You and Avoid Those That Aren't
Tale of a Female Nomad, Rita Gelman
Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
Monsters of Templeton, Laura Groff
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg
Silas Marner - George Eliot
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Gourmet Rhapsody - Muriel Barbery
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie