Oklahoma Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
What's your favorite book?
I'm about three-ish weeks away from graduating, and the thing I am looking forward to the most is having time to read books from the library again. Will you tell me some of your favorites? If you're really feeling motivated, tell me a little bit about your favorites. I'm open to anything...if you love it, I'm interested. 
Re: What's your favorite book?
I have two: The Godfather and In Cold Blood.
I read The Godfather several times a year. I can't get enough of it!
I don't know if I can pick a single favorite, but some of the ones that I have really loved are:
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore (hilarious!)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (You almost can't go wrong with anything by John Irving, IMO, the exception being The 158-Pound Marriage.)
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
A couple that I have read recently which you might enjoy are:
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale (very unusual, but very thought-provoking)
and
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan (a transcribed series of lectures published after his death - I *love* Carl Sagan)
I have a lot of favorites. I haven't really read anything recently though.
All time favorite is "Little Women". Also, if you really have a lot of time on your hands "Gone with the Wind" is pretty good. It's pretty slow going in some parts but I really liked it.
My most recent book that I have finished is "Atonement". I had seen the movie before I read the book but it's still great!
Also almost anything thing by Nicolas Sparks I love. Those are pretty quick reads for me, but beware they have been known to make me ugly cry.
Yay for graduating!
That is one thing I am looking forward to also. I am interested in everyone's suggestions as well.
The Book Thief was awesome - I can send you my copy if you're having trouble tracking down one.
I really want to read Water for Elephants, The Help and My Name is Mary Sutter. I plan on checking those books out [or buying them] very soon.
I haven't read the last one, but Water for Elephants and The Help were both really great! Another one I liked that I think is sort of along a similar vein is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Water for Elephants is fan-freaking-tastic!!
I also love the Phillipa Gregory books - Constant Princess and all of those that have taken place during the time of Henry VIII.
I read American Wife a few months ago but none of my friends IRL liked it.
I also recommend Freakenomics.
Finally, I love love love chick lit - Emily Giffen, all of the Jen Lancaster books are adorable and LOL funny.
LOVE her. I cannot WAIT to see the movie based off her first book!
Something Borrowed may be one of my most favorite books of all time. LOVE that book!
I also love Chick-Lit. Although, I'll read just about anything you set in front of me, it seems as if all my books are along the lines of light and fluffy. I have read a few that are deep, and I liked them - of course, I can't think of any of the names of them right now.
I'm a huge fan of the Stephanie Plum Series. They are redundant, but I seriously can't get enough of them. I also really liked the Southern Vampire Series (Sookie Stackhouse). I'm a fan of series, most of all. And, I LOVE all of Emily Griffin's books.
Can't remember all the authors...
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim--Sedaris
A Girl Named Zippy
I'm So Happy for You
I read everything. Here's some I've enjoyed:
East of Eden/Steinbeck
The Testament/Grisham
The Help/Stockett
To Kill a Mockingbird/Lee
The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Bean Trees, Poisonwood Bible/Kingsolver
Jodi Picoult's books
Nonfiction: Anything by Malcolm Gladwell, Freakonomics books
I am seriously drooling over these books!! YAY, thank you!! I've never heard of some of them, which makes me even more excited to get into these.
ETA: I forgot to share some of mine!
She's Come Undone
The Book of Ruth
Red Sky at Morning (This book always makes me have a crush on the lead character)
anything by Jen Lancaster
anything memoir-ish about eating disorders. I don't know why, but I love to read about eating disorders. My favorite book about that is The Best Little Girl in the World.
I thought American Wife was brilliant. I've read it twice.
Be careful reading Jen Lancaster's books in public--she will make you laugh out loud.
I also thought American Wife was brilliant. Us girls read it for our book club and NO ONE (except for me) got into it. I also read all of Curtis Sittenfeld's other books and hated them. Especially Prep. Gag me.
Lancaster's book Pretty in Plaid was totally my life (with the exception of being kicked out of school and getting into a ton of debt/losing the job bit) - just the fashion stuff.
I can't pick a favorite book, but some of the ones I've enjoyed recently are:
-Fire in Beulah by Rilla Askew (novel revolving around the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921)
-The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian (I'll be picking up more books by him on my next library trip).
-sci fi books by Greg Bear
I've also been reading some Salman Rushdie lately, but it's hard to get into his writing style and he keeps multiple parallel stories going at the same time.
I love all of the classics - To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, etc.
The book I can always, always pick up and read is Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.
Others I love:
The Tillerman series by Cynthia Voigt
Harry Potter series
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Some authors whose stuff I generally always enjoy: Marian Keyes, Jennifer Weiner, Jean Plaidy.
ETA: The Borgia Bride and I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis. I love me some historical fiction.
I tried to read Prep because the lady at the bookstore (who's usually awesome at picking books out for me) told me I'd love it. NOT. I couldn't even finish it. If fact, I'm not sure I understood much of what I even read.
And, OMG, how could I forgotten Harry Potter in my 1st post?! That series, is hands down, the best I've ever read. I've read them all more than once and I have never and will never love a series of books more. They are so deep and intricate and amazing!
I was looking at the new arrivals section at the library today and noticed they had My Name is Mary Sutter. It looked really interesting, so I picked it up to read after the book I just started. I'm glad you mentioned it, or I probably wouldn't have picked it up to read the description!
For an academic, I have really shitty taste in books. A friend once told me that I mostly read the mysteries that 50 year old women buy at the airport. Very true. Think Preston and Childs, Fairstein, Cornwell, etc.
I'm not a fan of the classics, but other books that have resonated with me at different points in my life are: The Book of Ruth, The Prince of Tides, The Harry Potter series, Nickel and Dimed, I Know this Much is True, and The Stand. The Stand made me want to be a sociologist because I was fascinated with the idea of how society would recreate itself if we essentially had to start all over again.
The last book I read straight through (in one day, crying most of the time) was "The Girls who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe vs Wade" which was about girls in the 1950s who would like "go care for a maiden aunt" during junior year, but everyone really knew they were just pregnant, going elsewhere to give birth, and then being essentially forced to give their babies up for adoption.
My next "must read" is "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" I have a student turning in a paper relating it tomorrow so I'm really interested to see what she has to say about it.
I am going to try to find this at Half Price Books this weekend. You have convinced me I must read it.
My all time fave is The Giving Tree.
Some good books I've read recently:
The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield) - It's gothic lit and suspenseful.
The Help (Kathryn Stockett) - It's about a lady who writes the stories of African American domestic servants in her hometown during the 1960s in Alabama.
I thought it was really good---and something we never really think about. They didn't think about it at the time, either. It was just the expectation.
I've been wanting to read this one. I know they also made this into a movie that is supposed to come out this year.
I forgot about Nickel and Dimed. That's another nonfiction one I enjoyed and read very quickly.