Book Recommendations

Wholeheartedly endorse Going Postal. I never understood the Terry Pratchett love until friends recommended I try it. Afterward, I tried the first book in Discworld for the second time and while I managed to finish it, it was still not very enjoyable so I think best practice is to start on a book everyone likes rather than at the beginning of the series.

(Also, whenever someone is recommending Catherynne Valente on snarkfest, I know without looking that it's Raksha! I bought Girl who circumnavigated fairyland on your rec but still haven't gotten to it. One of these days!)

I'm sad that I'm about to start on the third and final Montmaray Journal book by Michelle Cooper. The trilogy is so elegant and moving and exciting all at once. I don't want the series to end, but I definitely recommend the novels to anyone who desires some wistful, evocative reading.

I always buy two books for a friend of mine on her birthday, which is in a week or so. I have a more serious book already so I was going to get her Kelly Oxford's book, but it's only in hardcover and I know she would prefer paperback. I'm looking for something else along the same lines. Unfortunately, I know she's read a lot of authors in the funny memoir/essay genre already. Any recommendations? For reference, she's read Sloane Crosley, Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and is currently reading and liking Where'd You Go, Bernadette? I'm pretty sure she hasn't read Jenny Lawson's book but I'm not sure she would be into it.

Help!

Here a list of funny entertainment industry type memoirs I've read: Girl Walks into a Bar (Rachel Dratch), My Horizontal Life (Chelsea Handler), My Booky Wook (Russell Brand), Bill Cosby (I think he has 3? Parenthood, Time Flies, something else), Microthrills (Wendy Spero), I'm the One that I Want (Margaret Cho), Official Book Club Selection (Kathy Griffin), The Late Bloomer's Revolution (Amy Cohen), Mommies Who Drink (Brett Paesel).

Of those I would probably recommend Rachel Dratch (because she's the most similar to the Tina Fey/Mindy Kaling demo) and Wendy Spero (because it's hilarious and wacky). Amy Cohen's book might be good if she still single (a lot about dating trials), and I always recommend Brett Paesel's book to new moms. Hope that helps!

I just read Alison Arngrim's (Nellie Oleson from Little House) Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, and it was really funny and along the same vein as the rest.
Has she read any of the early Laurie Notaro or Jen Lancaster books? I'd stick their memoirs - Notaro's The Idiot Girls Action-Adventure Club still makes me laugh out loud, and so does Bitter is the New Black.

Thanks for the suggestions! Microthrills looks hilarious; I might check it out for me!

mokey, I actually have another good friend whose birthday is a week after this one's and I already got her Confessions of a Prairie Bitch! I considered just getting them both the same book but I wasn't sure of the etiquette. They're friends too so I assume they would know. I'm going to think on it.

Does anyone have recs for something akin to the Montmaray Journals trilogy? I want some good WWII historical fic.

Thank you Raksha for recommending The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making! It is very different from what I typically read but I enjoyed it. I am going to try Terry Pratchett next.

I'm so glad you liked it! I am slowly building my Valente Fan Army, one convert at a time!

After reading Jurassic Park, I think I may get to really like Michael Crichton's work. Which books of his would you recommend most, snarkers? I plan to grab The Lost World and maybe The Andromeda Strain tomorrow afternoon. Is Lex in TLW? I found her to be the most annoying kid I've ever encountered in fiction.

I liked Airframe a lot even though the technology from when it was written to now is very different. Same with Disclosure. But they are both still good mysteries.

Awesome! Thank you so much for the recs!

No Lex in The Lost World. Totally all new annoying kid character there.

Crichton was one of my favorite authors for a while, but then I read State of Fear and it completely ruined everything he'd ever written for me.

Dammit! My heart cheered at the "no Lex" part, only to be sorely disappointed by the next statement!

OK, we booked our trip to Boston today, so now I need book recommendations about the place. Fiction, nonfiction, give me a few quintessentially Boston titles I need to read before we go. Thanks!

Make Way for Ducklings!

I love April Morning, historical fiction, about the first Revolutionary War battles in Lexington and Concord, but then I grew up in Lexington and went to high school in Concord.

For history, Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates" which explains how we got founded. It's about Boston's colonial history. (Boston was founded in 1630, and the Revolution was in 1775, a 145 year gap. So the Revolution happened as long after the founding of Boston as we are from the Civil War, more or less.)

Oh, awesome! I LOVED Assassination Vacation, so I'm totally going to check this out, thanks!

On the fiction front, much of Dennis Lehane's stuff, Robert B Parker's Spenser series, and Chuck Hogan's The Town. For more contemporary Boston history, The Brothers Bulger and Black Mass both about the Irish Mob, All Soul's by Michael Patrick MacDonald, about growing up in Southie during the days of the busing crisis. For something a little lighter, there's Always Something Doing: Boston's Infamous Scollay Square. I imagine there must be any number of books that don't paint Bostonians as ruffians, gangsters and drunken hoors, but I can't think of any at the moment.

David McCullough's John Adams and 1776 feature Boston prominently.  I know that some people look down on him, because he's a "popular" historian, but I think he is a great storyteller, who lifts history to the level of literature.

Make sure to read them in that order, though, since 1776 clearly is the supplement to John Adams.  I remember and interview with McCullough where he said that it's a rule of thumb when writing a biography to not stray from the subject for more than five pages.  So, 1776 is all the cool stuff he learned when researching that didn't directly relate to Adams--although, since he's maybe the most eloquent historian to every live (IMO), he didn't say "cool stuff."

I was gonna mention anything by Dennis Lehane, but I see naughty zoot beat me to it!

Jeffrey Eugenides "Bunker Hill" about the Battle of Bunker Hill.  An oldie but goodie is "Back Bay" by William Martin.  First is non fiction, second fiction.  Second some of Dennis Lehane's but fair warning, some of them are very depressing.  There's also a great series of photo books by publisher Images of America that covers every neighborhood in the city.

whatthedeuce wrote:Does anyone have recs for something akin to the Montmaray Journals trilogy? I want some good WWII historical fic.

This is a bit late but Michelle Cooper herself has made a list of books similar to the Montmaray Journals.

You're awesome, big chicken! Thanks so much!

Has anybody here read The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey? Saw a book review the other day that piqued my interest, but I don't always trust recommendations from a magazine review. I do trust recommendations from SFers, though!