Question:
Good books to read this christmas break?
**gracie**
2008-12-18 12:07:33 UTC
It is finally christmas break and I can read something that is not for school. What are some good books that are not too much like school books, but not stupid gossip, high school books. I am a 15 year old girl, but I probably have more of the reading age taste of a middle aged man haha :)
Nine answers:
Pedestal 42
2008-12-18 12:40:29 UTC
" I probably have more of the reading age taste of a middle aged man "

That's a dangerous thing to say to this 52-year-old male.



So many genres...

Fantasy?

The "young person discovering..." is an oft-repeated theme,

but Feist's "Magician" does it better than many.



Terry Pratchett? Try Wyrd Sisters, or Mort,

(not the first books in the series, deliberately...)



Science Fiction:

Ender's Game.

Douglas Adams: The Hitchikers Guide to The Galaxy



History:

"Forgotten voices of the Great war" Max Arthur

Soldiers' own stories of WW1: not like reading pre-digested history schoolbooks at all.



Alastair Cooke's "America"

A classic .



Science:

"In Search of Schrodinger's Cat"

"Schrodinger's Kittens"

Readable, and highly informative.

(or get "The Cartoon History of Time")



Off the wall:

"Truer than True Romance": romantic comics from the 50's and 60's with all the captions and speech balloons subversively re-written for modern times.

(I collect some odd books which should probably not all be kept on the same shelf, but the above sits next to "Scalded to Death by the Steam": a compilation of American train-wreck songs, with details of the disasters that inspired them.)



What are you into? So many books, so little time...
Brookelyn
2008-12-18 20:13:37 UTC
I love mystery books, and I think Agatha Christie is a great author. Her stories aren't the cheap predictable plot sort of thing. Some of my favorites are:



Murder on the Orient Express

Ten Little Indians

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd



Also... maybe a fun romance:

Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers... totally sucks you in, but you would probably want to read the second book also:

Echo in the Darkness



Hope this helps :)
LibraryGal
2008-12-18 20:17:02 UTC
For "light" reading:



P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster books

Earl Derr Bigger's Charlie Chan books

Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books

Anything by Max Shulman (ie Barefoot Boy with Cheek, Sleep Till Noon, Potatoes are Cheaper, etc.)



To find these books and more at your local library, visit http://www.worlcat.org.



Happy Reading and Happy Vacationing!
Peace and Love
2008-12-18 20:25:51 UTC
I love Romance book's. So maybe Notebook, Romeo and Juliet (amazing)

Twilight, Vampire Kisses. Oh... and I heard Stephen King was amazing to be precise the Dark Tower Series.
marqueen71
2008-12-18 23:56:38 UTC
anything by Sarah Dessen, Ann Brashares, Meg Cabot, Jodi Picoult, Nicholas Sparks, Ellen Hopkins, or Laurie Halse Anderson - Titles at the 1st link below.



Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

13 Reason Why by Jay Asher

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Looking for Alaska by John Green



Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The Other Boleyn Girl and others by Philippa Gregory

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd



Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

My Antonia by Willa Cather

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne



The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien

Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz

Maximum Ride series by James Patterson

Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke

Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull

Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Storms of Vengeance by John Beachem

Wake and Fade by Lisa McMann

The Giver and sequels by Lois Lowry

A Great and Terrible Beauty and sequels by Libba Bray

Howl's Moving Castle

Pendragon series by DJ MacHale



anything by Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, Ursula K. LeGuin, Tamora Pierce, Donita K. Paul, Mercedes Lackey, Chris D'Lacey, Garth Nix, Terry Brooks, Raymond Fiest, Gene Wolfe, George RR Martin, etc. - Titles at the 2nd link below.
Greg M
2008-12-18 20:12:09 UTC
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy



OK, not really.



Read The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. It's an awesome, awesome series.



EDIT: zOMG, u hav 2 read Twilight! Edward is sooooooooooooooooooo hawt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111ONE!!1111ELEVEN11!
Alyssa
2008-12-18 20:18:09 UTC
twilight, stephen king writes good books if you like mystery/horror.



vampire kisses, a nice series.



thirteen reasons, define normal, nailed, the house next door, green angel



all very good.
stuck_in_a_book
2008-12-19 00:57:44 UTC
Heres some books I really enjoyed reading: sorry, there's kind of a lot :)



The Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett was really good, and I'll put in the fact that my uncle is reading a lot of his books as well :) which is how i got hooked on them!



The Immortals Series by Tamora Pierce - they are really good, its about this girl who has a "wild magic" that allows her to talk to animals and shape shift into animals, its set in the Tortallan era... or something like that :P these series are fantasy tho



13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher - its about a girl who committed suicide, and she recorded her story onto 13 tapes, and sent them to 13 people to tell them how they contributed to her decision



The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty - a really good book, you could also try A Year of Secret Assignments also by Jaclyn Moriary



Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin - about this girl who fell down a set of stairs and cannot remember a thing about her life, who her friends were, or who her family was. she tries to reconstruct herself and starts to remember who she was



Last Seen on Hoppers Lane by Janet Allais Stegeman - A girl stumbles upon men hiding in an abandoned house, uninvited. After trying to escape she is taken hostage, but becomes a friend to one of her captors.



Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt - Homecoming is the first one, you should read it first, so you know whats happening. i read Dicey's Song first, although i loved it and it was easy to follow



Looking For JJ by Anne Cassidy - is about a girl named Alice who is trying to start a new life after she killed one of her best friends when she was 10



Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix - a group of people find a "cure" for old age, but after perfecting and taking the pill, they find it reverses age instead, and, year after year they grow younger



The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci - Nobody knows what happened to Christopher Creed. People thought he was a freak, he got bullied at school. Then one day he just disappeared.



Crooked by Laura McNeal - hard to explain but worth reading



The Lottery by Beth Goobie - Every Year Shadow Council chooses one student to be the lottery winner. except in this lottery you become a victim. Whatever the label, the fated student becomes Council's go-fer, they deliver messages of doom to selected targets. And the rest of the student body completely shuns the lottery winner for the entire year. This year it's Sally Hanson



The New Policeman by Kate Thompson - A book about a boy who sets off looking for time, because time seems to be going by faster and faster every day. He discovers secrets and people who help him get it back. This one is fantasy too



The Moon Riders by Theresa Tomlinson - A lot like the Immortals Series, this series was also very good. Also Fantasy



The Decoding of Lana Morris by Laura McNeal - about a girl who has to live in a household full of special needs kids. She discovers a pad of paper that whatever she draws on them happens, it also triggers disasters she has to fix. Then their foster home is decreed unsuitable, and she must figure out what to do.



The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation Vol.1 The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson - At the beginning of the book, you come to know a strange 18th-century group of rational philosophers living around Boston in the late 1760s and early 1770s. Young Octavian is being raised by these scholars, philosophers, musicians, scientists, etc. He discovers he's part of a type of experiment, one that eventually gets into the wrong hands



The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Set during World War II in Germany its about a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery...



Tin Angel by Shannon Cowan - About a girl who's father is killed and has to move away from the only lifestyle she's only known - a log cabin called Raven's, set in the middle of nowhere. Her life changes drastically, and then Raven's is found burned to the ground and a man helping her family is found dead inside.



Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - amazing



These are all really good books :) Most of the books I choose, kind of on a whim but they were all definitely worth reading
blot
2008-12-18 20:22:57 UTC
middle aged man? =]

ha idk. i did enjoy these books tho:



unwind-Shusterman

hunger games-Collins

13reasons why- i forgot =P

deadline-Crutcher


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