Lat night I laughed out loud as I read Bob Goff’s Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World. (If you read it, just remember Ryan, and you’ll know what made me laugh) Written humility, heart, humor, and describing the author’s faith, it drew me through the first eleven chapters in one sitting. I didn’t want to put it down. I texted my friend, Jennifer, here in Sacramento, to thank her for recommending it. It’s a great story to have on your mind as you fall asleep.
My friends, family and I are all voracious readers, on both coasts and between, constantly on the lookout for another good story. I search the New York Times bestseller list, American Library Association recommended reading lists, Goodreads, Amazon and Barnes & Noble 5-star books, and even the covers of books to which strangers’ eyes are glued at airports, cafes, the beach, and poolside.
I realized it’s been a while since I posted what I’ve been reading.
The titles may give away where I saw each of these books. I’m not saying they’re all equal in literary artistry. You can check their ratings and read free samples on Amazon or B&N. (I again left off the list the books that make you say to yourself at the end, “I gave away those minutes of my life for THAT?”) But here are a few of the others!
- Lucimarian and Robin Roberts – My Story, My Song: Mother-Daughter Reflections on Life and Faith (as told to Missy Buchanan.) I recognized Robin Roberts from Good Morning, America. This is her mother’s fascinating story, including how music graced her entire life, before, during, and since the civil rights movement
- Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)
- Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, for which she won the Pen/Faulkner Award, and The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life
- Jennifer Hanson’s Hiking the Continental Divide Trail: One Woman’s Journey
- Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain. I loved this book, as a reader, and as a writer.
- Catherine Ryan Hyde’s When I Found You follows the lives of a man walking in the woods, and the abandoned infant he finds there
- Liane Moriarty’s The Hypnotist’s Love Story
- Dianne Mott Davidson’s Crunch Time. (I’ve read all of Dianne’s culinary mystery novels, set in and near my former town, Evergreen, Colorado)
- Juan E. Méndez and Marjory Wentworth – Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights. Click the link to understand the credibility of his perspective
- Martin Crosbie’s My Temporary Life: set in modern day Scotland and Canada, the first half is like a YA novel, second half grownup, following a young man to adulthood
- Nicholas Sparks: The Best of Me
- Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. Intersects Bob Goff’s book, above
- E L Kames’ erotic and funny Fifty Shades of Gray,
- Abigail Thomas memoir: A Three Dog Life
- Paul Harding’s Pultizer-winning Tinkers
- Helene Cooper: The House at Sugar Beach
- Mary Karr’s Lit, which I also just started, and now read only in the morning
- Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!
- Tina Fey: Bossypants
- Juliette Sobanet’s Sleeping With Paris
- Luis Carlos Montalván’s Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him
- Jessica Parks – Flat-out Love
- Jennifer Richard Jacobson’s Small As An Elephant, with an eleven-year-old protagonist, was treasured by this adult reader.
So, what have YOU been reading?