Readers and Reading discussion

#1 favorite ---The Help by Kathryn Stockett - 19 votes

#2 (tie with 12 votes each)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Shaffer and Barrows

#3 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout - 10 votes

#4 South of Broad by Pat Conroy - 8 votes

#5 (tie with 7 votes each)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

#6 (tie with 5 votes each)

Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah
Still Alice by Lisa Genova

I actually have read or are reading 3 of the top 6. That is great for me.

While i haven't read any of the top ones (no surprise there), this list looks like a good representation of the year. I have over half of them on my TBR for this year, my feeble effort to keep somewhat current.

JoAnn, i must again thank you for the work entailed. The contacts you maintain are outstanding & you manage to make this list & the process a joy for us all. Kudos!

deborah

JoAnne, thanks so much for being so considerate and kind in putting this whole year together.

I am happy to see that my Olive Kitteredge is on the list again this year!!

Thanks for all your work JoAnn. Always look forward to the results so I can add some non-genre fiction to my TBR pile. I went ahead and downloaded both The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Olive Kitteridge: A Novel in Stories on audio and put The Help on hold.

RNOCEAN wrote: "JoAnne, thanks so much for being so considerate and kind in putting this whole year together."

LOL - I am not all that kind nor considerate. I am a numbers geek! You would almost think I liked math.

Great to have the list, Joanne. Thanks for compiling it.

Thanks for the work you put in compiling this list JoAnn! Three of my favorites made your list.

Donna

Thank you, JoAnn, for your diligence in compiling this list each year! It's always fun to see the results.

Thanks, JoAnn. I have actually read 7 of them, and am looking forward to Sarah's Key next.

I havent read any of them yet :( But i'll make sure that i do.

The Help was a phenomenal read - the characters became friends. I read some of the others and I don't think they were anywhere as much fun to read as The Help. Thank you for compiling the List!

Welcome, Caitlin and Kristen. Glad you enjoyed the list.

I am probably one of the few who did not like the Help. Dont get me wrong, I am glad I read it, but just did not care for it. Too long, very wordy and the dialect was probably the worst feature. After I read The Help, I read Saving Cee Cee Honecutt, and found it to be much more reader friendly. It basically is about the same thing.

Richiesheff wrote: "I am probably one of the few who did not like the Help. Dont get me wrong, I am glad I read it, but just did not care for it. Too long, very wordy and the dialect was probably the worst feature. After I read The Help, I read Saving Cee Cee Honecutt, and found it to be much more reader friendly. It basically is about the same thing. ..."

I TOTALLY agree with everything you said above, although I probably liked it more than you did.

I recommend CeeCee to everyone who tells me they liked The Help.

I read a couple of reviews that were critical of Stockett using dialect for the black characters and not the white ones. Of course, if she had used it for both groups, that would have driven me over the edge!

I read The Help, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, Olive Kitteridge nd south of Braod. My least favorite was Olive Kitteridge

Meredith

I have Olive, have not read yet, but did read Guernsey and loved the book. I have my 1st Conroy here and picked The Prince of Tide. I hope this like another book that I read Whiskey Island, that I looked at many tmes. until I decided to read it and had to buy a used paperback. I went on to read most of Emilie Richards boos.

I thought Olive Kitteridge was good. Prince of Tides is okay. Did not care for the Guernsey Literature and Potato Peel Society, I like the Alexander McCall Smith series with the Ladies Detective Agency. Conrack by Pat Conroy is good too.

Richiesheff wrote: "I have Olive, have not read yet, but did read Guernsey and loved the book. I have my 1st Conroy here and picked The Prince of Tide. I hope this like another book that I read Whiskey Island, that ..."

I loved Olive and Guernsey too, but then again, I am a sucker for epistolary novels.

Conrack was the title of the movie made from Conroy's autobiographical book, The Water is Wide which I think was his best.

JoAnn/QuAppelle wrote: "Richiesheff wrote: "I have Olive, have not read yet, but did read Guernsey and loved the book. I have my 1st Conroy here and picked The Prince of Tide. I hope this like another book that I read W..."

Yes, it was called the water is wide, i did see the movie with Jon Voight and thought it was very poignanat.

Robin wrote: "Yes, it was called the water is wide, i did see the movie with Jon Voight and thought it was very poignanat. .."

Here is a coincidence...I was cleaning off a shelf in our entertainment center today and found a DVD recording (remember DVD recorders, which were popular for about 5 minutes a few years ago?) of the movie, Conrack. I guess it was on TV and I recorded it. So now it is in my pile of DVDs to watch.

You will like that movie, Jon Voight plays Conroy, pronounced Conrack by the kids in the school that he teaches at. Hume Cronyn is in it also, he plays the superintendent, I believe. It is a charming story of the rural south in those days.

Robin wrote: "You will like that movie, Jon Voight plays Conroy, pronounced Conrack by the kids in the school that he teaches at."

I saw Conrack in the theaters the week it was released about a million years ago, Robin. I have seen it several times on TV since then.

I could not get that disk to work....will have to wait to see it again on TV.

:)