The Next Best Book Club discussion

Hi, this is my first post to this forum so hello to everyone! I love books and I'd read anything as long as the story's good. Unfortunately I easily loose interest in books that are slow and boring. So I'm looking for any book that was addicting to read that you're compelled to read in one go. Similar books that I enjoyed are the Hunger Games series, Divergent book 1 and Ready Player One. I would appreciate your suggestions and please say something about the books and what/why you enjoyed about them. ;)

I read all the time. I read at lunchtime at work. I read at night when I get home. I read when I get into bed at night. I hate when a book doesn't hold my interest. I can say that I have never lost interest in any James Patterson or Janet Evanovich book. Every Dean R. Koontz book keeps me reading late into the night. I just started on the Craig Johnson "Longmire" series, and they are pretty good. Keep you guessing and they have some great characters.

Pj wrote: "I read all the time. I read at lunchtime at work. I read at night when I get home. I read when I get into bed at night. I hate when a book doesn't hold my interest. I can say that I have never lost..."

Thanks for the reply. I read a lot as well. I'll definitely check out all the authors you've mentioned. I think I'll start with James Patterson. His Maximum Ride series seem good.

I really like books by Harlan Coben. If you want to read his work, I'd start with Tell No One.

Christy wrote: "I really like books by Harlan Coben. If you want to read his work, I'd start with Tell No One."

I like the book's description. I'll include it in my to read list. ;)

Hi! I'm also new to the group and very excited to be part of it. I love reading but, like Sharon, have often trouble finding books that hold my interest. Classics usually do that to me, especially Russian classics (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, ...). I like stories that feel real, stories I can somehow relate to, experience, learn from. And I like journeys taken to solve puzzles or deeper questions that the main characters or I or both might have. So I immensely enjoyed Paula Hawkins, The Girl on The Train, a thriller very well written, and rich in plot and existential puzzles. And I loved Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers. This one more of a journey to understand human feelings and relations. In the past two/three years, these are the ones I read in one sitting. I spend my days reading and writing, as this is what I do for living. So I'm very demanding as to the books I read. I strongly recommend these two.

Sorry. Just posted the above with my husband's account by mistake. I'll re-post under my name.

Hi! I'm also new to the group and very excited to be part of it. I love reading but, like Sharon, have often trouble finding books that hold my interest. Classics usually do that to me, especially Russian classics (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, ...). I like stories that feel real, stories I can somehow relate to, experience, learn from. And I like journeys taken to solve puzzles or deeper questions that the main characters or I or both might have. So I immensely enjoyed Paula Hawkins, The Girl on The Train, a thriller very well written, and rich in plot and existential puzzles. And I loved Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers. This one more of a journey to understand human feelings and relations. In the past two/three years, these are the ones I read in one sitting. I spend my days reading and writing, as this is what I do for living. So I'm very demanding as to the books I read. I strongly recommend these two.

Simona wrote: "Hi! I'm also new to the group and very excited to be part of it. I love reading but, like Sharon, ha..."
I feel the same way about books. I like books that engages me, that takes me on journeys, that I can learn from. Thank you for sharing these books to me, they must have meant something to you. I love them and I'm excited to read them! ;)

Thanks, Sharon! I look forward to your feedback on those.

Our reaction to books is necessarily influenced by our feelings and moods of the moment. So it might be that I loved those books so much because they perfectly matched me and my feelings at that time. It is magic when that happens. I mean, randomly choosing a book and later discover that it perfectly matched our emotional zone, perhaps even helping us answering some of the questions that were lingering in the back of our mind. I do love when that happens, that random selection that leads to magic discoveries. It was so for "The Solitude of Prime Number," and "The Girl on The Train."

But, true, other times the random selection is not successful, and so the pile of books that I never finished reading could easily reach my ceiling. Still, I love being surprised.

Lol, i know what you mean Simona. That's how it feels like when you find the right book. Wish it happens more often, extremely good books are hard to come by. I'll definitely write a feedback here once I finished reading the ones you suggested. :)

If anyone here liked Girl on the Train, I just finished a book similar to that called "The Womanhood sIn Cabin 10." Very similar type of book, a real thriller. I also like to read Vince Flynn books. He is in a similar vein as James Patterson.

Hi Donnalee! Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out for sure! ;)

The Shong Wars: Declaration

Speaking of things you'd finish until the end...

I was sick home last Saturday, and my husband tried to cheer me up by buying a new kindle and looking for a story that would entice me and pull me in. "What type of novel would you like to read?" he asked. He was looking for a label, a box, and I didn't want to give it any. "Surprise me," I said, "you know me."

I love when I ask him to guess what I would like. I'm curious to see whether, after all those years, he still knows me, the essence of me. He knows I like "naked writing," writing that pulls you from your navel. He knows that well.

He picked "Everything We Keep" by Kerry Lonsdale. He read the description of the book to me and I was impressed. Yes, that sounded exactly what I was looking for. He pointed to the reviews (43,000 ratings, 3.5 out of 5). I was excited.

I started reading and I was puzzled. I didn't believe the protagonist. Her voice was fake, her considerations were out of place, the story was delivered with a careful plan, one that you would find in a cheap movie. Something you know is fake the minute you start watching. And it's so fake it almost irritates you.

So I have read a few pages and I'm wondering how this could happen? Have we, as readers, have lost our ability to recognize and appreciate good writing? What do we really look for in a book? Are we influenced by others' judgment in making our selection and rating/review. My husband was. He chose this book, he said, because of the plot, yes, but also for the 43,000 ratings.

So no, "Everything We Keep" is hard to hold on to. For me. But It might be my personal reaction. After all, 43,000 reviews are not easy to get.

I like books with a good flow, suspense/mystery and/or romance. I have a lot of favorite authors but follow a lot of book bloggers to find new books/authors. I love John Grisham-I like his legal/attorney stories because we can see both sides of the story. I love Nicholas Sparks because of the romance in his books. Janet Evanovich books are so much fun to read because they are light and have a lot of humor. You just never know what kind of mess her characters will get into & it is fun to see how they get out of it. Lisa See is another favorite author. I read one of her books for book club. It was a book that I probably would not have picked out on my own but was so glad when I finished reading. It was such a sad book but written so well that it kept my interest from start to finish. It is exciting to pick up a great book and to get lost into that world for a little bit!

Simona wrote: "Speaking of things you'd finish until the end...

I was sick home last Saturday, and my husband tried to cheer me up by buying a new kindle and looking for a story that would entice me and pull me ..."

How cute that your husband would know what to look for in a book for you! How would he know that it would turn out that way? You were probably surprised as much as he was how it turned out. I recently read reviews of a book & was so excited about it that I checked out everything I could by the author. I read the first book & was pleasantly surprised. I moved on to one of her series of books & was so disappointed in the morals or lack of in two of the characters that I couldn't make it through the first part of the book let alone the series. I will try the author again but for sure not that series. I know we all have our own taste in books & stories that we love but I was surprised by the great reviews that was given to this book series.

I discovered a fun mystery series by a book blogger- Cleo Coyle's Coffee Shop Mysteries. I am on my first one & so far it seems like a great book. It is a little long but it's interesting. I love fun mysteries like this one. I'm obviously a little late in the game since the last book that was recently published is book #16.

I recommend An Ember in the Ashes series. The setting is intriguing as it's a mix between a Roman and Arabian empire.

Thanks Tatiana for the suggestion.
Simona too bad for that book, you cant really judge a book based on the sypnosis and reviews right? It was kinda similar to when I read The Magician's Guild, the sypnosis was what exactly I was looking for so I was expecting an adventure, and hoping something exciting would happen, but to my disappointment. Btw, that was sweet of your husband.
Melissa, thanks for sharing your favorite authors, I'll definitely check them out!
To Tanima, I like the book you recommended, I'll put it in my to-read list.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys!! ;)

I miss the exchanges on this thread.

I had been very busy at work, but today I took a break and was hoping to read more. There wasn't any update, so I thought I should try to get our thread going, to share more, as I had been enjoying it so much. So I will share something.

The past weekend it rained a lot here, in L.A. It was beautiful, as we miss the rain, we need it, and because you could stay home, cook something nice, indulge in some delicious food and/or movie and/or book. I am still struggling on "Everything We Keep," but don't want to let it go. I haven't changed my mind, but I want to continue reading until the end, because it's helping me realize even more what I don't like in a book.

As I was trying to hold on to Everything We Keep, my very dear friend Helena started reading Looking for Clara, my own book, the first of the four I've written, the only one I've published so far.

She was texting me from time to time, and telling me where she was in the reading. She started reading it on Friday night, thought she would read just a bit (she's a busy lawyer with a huge workload, often too tired to read, especially at night). But she said she couldn't stop, and she finished it on Sunday morning.

When I called her, she could barely talk. She was so overwhelmed with emotions.

She loved the book. I do too. Of course I do. I have re-read that book tons of times. I wrote it three years ago and it still has that effect on me.

When we talk about "things we would finish until the end," I know what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something real, something that pulls me from my navel, unadorned with jargon and noise. Something that is real and feels so.

Modern literature is often too interested in the art of writing, in the art of impressing. It seems to be working as a juggler. You lose yourself and the story as you try to follow the perfect architecture of sentences, the words used, some of which you never heard before. But beneath the surface, not much is left.

I look for strong emotions, real stories, real feelings, deep emotional journeys that make you shiver as a cold shower, or lullaby you like a warm bath with rose petals floating on the surface.

I thought I should share this with you because Helena's reaction made me think of what we'd been talking about. What we want to hold on to. What keeps us with a story, in a story, invested in it. And because, I must confess, I miss our sharing here and I wanted to better introduce myself and my ideas.

I hope you all have a good rest of the week and hope we'll talk more.

Elmer Kelton is an author I'd never heard of before a friend suggested I read The Day the Cowboys Quit. It's hard for me to find a western themed book that captures my attention, but this story did the trick. It's Kelton at his best. The characters were authentic and the tale read like you were watching a movie. Made a Kelton believer out of me although only a few of his other stories match up to the quality of this book. His writing had an immense influence on me as I created the Hard Land to Rule Trilogy. Give him a shot. I don't think you'll regret it.

Have you tried Jared McVay's Clay Brentwood series. Book 1 - Stranger On A Black Stallion?

What others finished, I haven't even paid attention to, to be honest. My interest in books depend on what I think I need to read. For example, I have finished reading until the last pages of its appendices even though I know some will only use it as a reference.

Then again, I'm still attached to Harry Potter and I tend to read the entire series every year.

I think you should just stick to the genre of books that have gripped you instead. I'm pretty sure, a list can help you identify the next book you can read.

I just finished Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen. I loved it! Couldn’t put it down