Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion
2018 Challenge Prompts-Advanced
>
10. A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge
message 1:
by
Sara
(new)
Nov 02, 2017 06:25AM

reply
|
flag

The Nightingale
The Poisonwood Bible
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
The Invention of Wings
Girl with a Pearl Earring
The Book Thief
Midwives
Water for Elephants
Orphan Train
The Secrets of the Notebook: A Woman's Quest to Uncover Her Royal Family Secret

Denner's Wreck
Radiance
The Martian
The Snow Child
A Wizard of Earthsea
And just to balance things out with a couple of non-fantasy/scifi titles:
The Handmaid's Tale
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
This should be a good one!! When 2017 is over, I'll make a list of my favorite reads of the year and put it here.

A Dirty Job
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
It Ends with Us

Historical Fiction
The Power of One
The Poisonwood Bible
Code Name Verity
Literary Fiction
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Everything I Never Told You
Love Stories
Unsticky
Jane Eyre
Daughter of the Forest
Pretty Face
The Hating Game
Mystery Series
The Cuckoo's Calling
Deal Breaker
Rules of Prey
Memoir
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Scrappy Little Nobody
Rules of Prey
Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
Apocalyptic
The Passage
The Stand
When She Woke
Space Opera
Illuminae - audio version is AMAZING
Legal Thriller
Exile
These are all books I LOVE.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
The Rosie Project
The Sun and Her Flowers
Anything by Jojo moyes
Anything by Fredrik Backman

Our Dreams Might Align (short stories, small publisher)
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
A Closed and Common Orbit
The Essex Serpent
The Gustav Sonata
All the Birds in the Sky
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
The Golem and the Jinni
A Man Called Ove
Americanah
Code Name Verity
The Song of Achilles
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Magicians
The Book Thief
The Arrival - a book with no words, amazing!
84, Charing Cross Road
Magpie Murders
The Color Purple
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Age of Innocence
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Odes to Common Things
Wow, there is a little of everything in there!

Winter Garden
Little Fires Everywhere
Code Name Verity
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Stillhouse Lake
The Child
The Roanoke Girls
I Am Watching You
The Butterfly Garden
Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
This is How It Always Is
The Lonely Hearts Hotel
Before We Were Yours
Gather the Daughters
The Wildling Sisters
The Marsh King's Daughter
The Life She Was Given
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Allegedly

1. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud:
The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, Ptolemy's Gate
I'd call it Urban Fantasy, the best part is the djinni who is hilarious and sarcastic, and just one of the best characters ever invented!
2. Peter Grant Series by Ben Aaronovitch: The first book is Rivers of London
- Urban Fantasy as well, also sarcasm
3. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Just one of the best book ever, I love Nick Hornby... and I could identify with the characters somehow... quirky, British...
4. Short Story Collections:
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman... enuff said!)
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (The movie Arrival is based on one of these short stories. I really loved this collection. Great, different stories)
5. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character AND / OR What Do You Care What Other People Think? both by Richard Feynman - these are non-fictional, sorta memoir-ish, but more like hilarious/interesting anecdotes of one of the most fascinating human beings ever

Weird Fiction - Humorous
What the Hell Did I Just Read (you could start with this one or with the first book, John Dies at the End)
Meddling Kids
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
A Night in the Lonesome October
Horror/Spooky/Serious Weird Fiction
Thornhill
Lovecraft Country
Coraline
Spill Zone
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror
The Devil You Know
The Girl with All the Gifts
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Thirteenth Tale
Dark Matter (not the Blake Crouch one -this is a haunting during a 1937 Arctic expedition)
The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity
American Elsewhere
Fantasy/Fairy tales
Stardust
Black Sun Rising
The Eyes of the Dragon
Science Fiction
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
The Time Machine
The Gone-Away World
Redshirts
Saga, Vol. 1
The Martian
Romance (no bodice-ripping) and Friendship
Persuasion
The Rosie Project
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
A Man Called Ove
Self Help
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

I second this one, so good. Another great non fiction I enjoyed this year was The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
I'd also be happy to recommend:
Rebecca
Hotel du Lac
A Kestrel for a Knave
The Help
The Book Thief
The Little Paris Bookshop
All the Bright Places
The Shadow of the Wind
The Kite Runner
Station Eleven

Dark Matter
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
Ready Player One
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest TrailThornhill
The Girl Before
Heartless
Carve the Mark AUDIO (apparently it was hard to get through when other's read it themselves. I thought the audio was great)
Graphic Novels
The Sculptor
Black Hole
Last Look
Blankets
Lighter Than My Shadow
Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too: A Book
Imagine Wanting Only This
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness

Caraval
Norse Mythology
We Were Liars
Interpreter of Maladies
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
Fangirl
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Remains of the Day
On the Jellicoe Road
Neverwhere
Brooklyn
Little Bee
I Am the Messenger
The Wake
Darkfever
Anthem

Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Howl's Moving Castle
Little Fires Everywhere
A Gambler's Anatomy
Fierce Kingdom
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

The Betrayal of Africa
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Imagine Wanting Only This
Say You're One of Them
Eva
The Complete Maus
The Metamorphosis
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Cloud Atlas
Legend
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
Slaughterhouse-Five
The House of Mirth
The Hate U Give
The Dogs of Babel
Children of the New World
Kindred
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Stoner

The Shoemaker's Wife
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay
When Breath Becomes Air
Still Alice
A Man Called Ove
The Life We Bury
Fates and Traitors: A Novel of John Wilkes Booth
Some of my four star books from this year (that won't likely be on everyone's list:
Frankie's Place: A Love Story
The Book of Speculation
Graduates in Wonderland: The International Misadventures of Two (Almost) Adults
Elizabeth Is Missing
The Amateur Marriage
The Snow Child
The Lock Artist
Be Frank With Me
Girl at War
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

All the Light We Cannot See
The Handmaid's Tale
The Sellout
The Stranger
The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey
Human Acts
Burial Rites
A Man Called Ove
Here Comes the Sun
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Lincoln in the Bardo
The Complete Maus
American Gods
The House of the Spirits
A Gentleman in Moscow
All brilliant :-)

Turtles All the Way Down
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Sing, Unburied, Sing
The Little Stranger
The Distance Between Us
No One Can Pronounce My Name
The Borrower

Survivor - this is a very graphic/violent book so just be careful
Eye Candy
Misery
And Then There Were None
Follow Me Back
Six of Crows
Violent Ends
One Was Lost
Change of Heart
20 Times a Lady
The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell

Celine
We Were Liars
84, Charing Cross Road
The Hate U Give
Sweetbitter

Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs--Wallace Stegner
Best. Night. Ever.--Jen Malone
Reading Lolita in Tehran--Azar Nafisi
Martin Chuzzlewit--Charles Dickens
Wives and Daughters--Elizabeth Gaskell
The Big Rock Candy Mountain--Wallace Stegner
The Blacker the Berry--Wallace Thurman

The Hating Game - GREAT chick-lit
Gone with the Wind
The Cuckoo's Calling - Love the characters
Darkfever - If you love urban fantasy and masculine love interests
The Time Traveler's Wife
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Jane Austen Project - If you love romance, Jane Austen, and time travel!
The Nightingale
Me Before You
Biography:
The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family - Not for everyone but I had to throw this in here
Memoirs:
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
Unqualified
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
The Scarlett Letters: My Secret Year of Men in an L.A. Dungeon
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Fiction:
The Power
If We Were Villains
The Secret Place & The Trespasser
The Blinds
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Murder on the Orient Express
Mystic River
Day After Night
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
White Oleander
YA Fiction:
Wonder Woman: Warbringer
What Girls Are Made Of
A Thousand Nights
The Walls Around Us
When Dimple Met Rishi
We Are Okay
Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
Rebel of the Sands
A Tyranny of Petticoats
Challenger Deep
Labyrinth Lost
Someone Like You
The Art of Being Normal
Thicker Than Water\
The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
The Darkest Minds
Classics:
The Secret Garden
The Age of Innocence
To the Lighthouse
The Handmaid's Tale
Lady Susan
Graphic Novels:
Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself
Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy
Saga, Vol. 1
Non-Fiction:
Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age Story
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores
What Happened
Between the World and Me
Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World
Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World
Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History
Women Who Love Books Too Much: Bibliophiles, Bluestockings & Prolific Pens from the Algonquin Hotel to the YA-YA Sisterhood
Poetry:
Milk and Honey
The Sun and Her Flowers
The Collected Poems

Non-Fiction
* One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
* We Are Never Meeting In Real Life
* What Happened
* Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
* Modern Romance
Fiction
* Station Eleven
* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
* The Night Circus
* Final Girls
* The Memory Keeper's Daughter
* Daughters of the Dragon
* Sourdough
* The Kite Runner
* The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
* The Nightingale
* All the Missing Girls
* A Million Junes
* Trail of Broken Wings

Wonder Just plain one of those books everyone should read.
Tuesdays at the Castle A charming story.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie British mystery as solved by precocious chemistry obsessed eleven year old. Fun read!
100 Cupboards A Narnia-but-darker style adventure.
YA:
These Broken Stars I loved everything about this book, up until the point where it ripped out my heart and stomped on it, and even after that I couldn't seem to stop myself from recommending it to everyone.
Cinder This series makes one of my favorite sets of fairy tale re-writes to date, and I read lot of fairy tale re-writes.
The Paper Magician A thoroughly enjoyable alternate England with magic story.
Fantasy:
(urban):Neverwhere A very satisfying urban fantasy that permanently changes the way you look at nooks and crannies of cities.
The Eyre Affair Not sure how to categorize this, but we'll call it fantasy. Or maybe British humor. Or just every book lover's secret dream.
Sci-fi:
Redshirts Don't bother unless you're a Trekkie, but if you are (and have a decent sense of humor about it), it's a must read.
Pathfinder One of those odd sci-fi/fantasy crossovers, but as always Orson Scott Card is spot on in his characterization and his exploration of time and space in this one is a lot of fun.
Classics:
The Scarlet Pimpernel Swashbuckling adventure and romance with clever plans. Slow start, but once you hit the 'good parts' you won't want to put it down.
Northanger Abbey My personal favorite of the Jane Austen books because of the humor (this is the gothic romance that makes fun of gothic romances).
Non fiction:
The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith
A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty
Five Equations That Changed the World
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient - Powered by the Science of Games

The Lost Symbol
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Jar City
With or Without You
Wolfsong
A Spear of Summer Grass
Mists of the Serengeti
Beautiful Secret
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse
Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon
It's a Book
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins
Now We Are Six
The Gashlycrumb Tinies
James and the Giant Peach
Alex and the Ironic Gentleman
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Twenty-One Balloons
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Chasing Vermeer
Roller Girl
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Ready Player One
The Collapsing Empire
The Fold
Emperor Mollusk versus The Sinister Brain
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens
My Man Jeeves
And Then There Were None
Partners in Crime
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Moonstone
Rebecca
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Kindred
The Night Circus
The Sellout

Classics:
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Remains of the Day
Fiction:
Diary of a Fat Girl
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland
The Things We Wish Were True
Historical Fiction:
The King's Confidante
Mystery:
Blood on the Tracks
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Signature Wounds
Nonfiction:
Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua
The Hidden Magic of Walt Disney World: Over 600 Secrets of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom
I Love You, Ronnie: The Letters of Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between
Sci-Fi/Fantasy:
Ahsoka
Heir to the Empire
Younger Readers:
Saving Zasha
The Way of the Jedi


Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
Boo by Neil Smith
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby
Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey
The Break by Katherena Vermette

The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve
A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Fiction
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Wasp Factory
I See You by Clare Mackintosh
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Anne of Green Gables by L.M.Montgomery
I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
Wonder by R.J.Palacio
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison
Eeny Meeny by M.J.Arlidge
Finding Emma by Steena Holmes
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Non Fiction
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Asne Seierstad
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir by Anh Do
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal by Asne Seierstad
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry
Joe Cinque's Consolation, A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law by Helen Garner
The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland
Beautiful by Katie Piper

I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring and suggest a few of my favorites from these last few years.
Thriller/Mystery:
In the Woods
Final Girls
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
Pretty Girls
The Winter People
The Body in the Library
Non-Fiction:
Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Why Not Me?
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Zookeeper's Wife
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
YA:
When Dimple Met Rishi
Girl on a Wire
Saints and Misfits
We Were Liars
There's Someone Inside Your House
Every Heart a Doorway
Fiction:
The Martian
The Night Circus
Room
Jane Austen Ruined My Life
Misery

Fiction:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Saga, Vol. 1 (and all other volumes)
Independent People
The Last Unicorn
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Hotel du Lac
The Stone Diaries
Non-fiction:
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Fiction:
by Murakami: 1Q84 , Norwegian Wood , The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Station Eleven
The Cuckoo's Calling and the other Cormoran Strike books
Still Life and the other Inspector Gamache books
Daughter of the Forest and the other books in this fantasy series
anything Harry Potter
The Remains of the Day
The History of Love
A Very Long Engagement (made into a movie with Audrey Tatou)
Pride and Prejudice
Americanah
Akata Witch
A Man Called Ove
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Little Bee
The Bonesetter's Daughter
The Golden Compass and other books in the trilogy
Watership Down
Absolutely Truly and Yours Truly (middle-grade mystery series)
Short Story Collections:
Interpreter of Maladies
Redeployment
The Thing Around Your Neck
Nonfiction:
Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
How to Live on Almost Nothing and Have Plenty
From the Garden to the Table: Growing, Cooking, and Eating Your Own Food

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfield
And the Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

1. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud:
The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, Ptolemy's Gate
I'd call it Urban..."
Thanks for this. I've been looking at Aaronvitch's book in my shelf for a while now. Looking forward to reading it.

Homegoing
Lincoln in the Bardo
The Twelfth Tale
News of the World
The Care and Management of Lies
The Chalk Artist
the Golden Spruce
My Cousin Rachel

Making Faces
Mud Vein
A couple more that I just loved this year include:
Atheists Who Kneel and Pray
Songlines
Eden Wakes
The Half of me books by Diana T. Scott

Bel Canto
Classics:
Pride and Prejudice
To Kill A Mocking Bird: Notes
Historical Fiction:
The Pillars of the Earth
The Last Kingdom
Historical Romance:
Outlander
Fantasy:
The Queen's Poisoner
Traitor's Blade
The Thief
Sci-Fi:
Ready Player One
Dark Matter
Too Like the Lightning
YA SFF:
Six of Crows
The Diabolic
Horror:
Under the Dome
The Green Mile
NOS4A2
Mystery/Thriller:
The Whispering Room
The Passenger

At the Water's Edge
Goodnight June
any of her 3 and hopefully her 4th comes out next year
Robert Galbraith
I have also liked all the Jojo Moyes I have read

YA favs
If I Stay (and if you loved that one try reading Where She Went)
Trust Me, I'm Lying
Tonight the Streets Are Ours
P.S. I Like You
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
Hunted
Fangirl
Denton Little's Deathdate
To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Beastly
The Last Unicorn (I prefer the graphic novel over the actual book)
Wink Poppy Midnight
Uprooted
And some Adult books just to balance it out
Adult Books
The Martian
Gods Behaving Badly
Austenland
Losing It (erotic)
The Dress Shop of Dreams
The Table of Less Valued Knights
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir (Memoir)
The Paid Companion (Erotic Victorian Murder Mystery)
The Naughty Girls Book Club
Ride the Winter Wind
Books mentioned in this topic
Girl with a Pearl Earring (other topics)Hex (other topics)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (other topics)
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (other topics)
Captive Prince (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Terry Pratchett (other topics)Laline Paull (other topics)
Kristan Higgins (other topics)
C.S. Harris (other topics)
Alan Bradley (other topics)
More...