# Books you couldn't put down
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 30, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803 "2011-07-30T02:30:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/1 "2011-07-30T02:30:21Z")
Of course I can’t find that recent “list of book threads” thread, but I don’t recall anything with that particular slant.
I wanna load up my Nook for a long bus ride next weekend (hopefully from the library but I’ll buy a couple as well).
I like science fiction, and trashy romances, but funny stuff is good too. Some mysteries are OK but they’ve got to be pretty gripping. History and most nonfiction will have me snoozing, I fear.
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/2 "2011-07-30T02:48:24Z")
Les Miserables.
Read it Friday night till 4 am the next morning, went to work at 9:00, home at 5, read it till it was finished.
Of course, that was the short, 500 page abridged version.
Best wishes,
hh
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### Author:  [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/3 "2011-07-30T03:14:58Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#):
>
> I like science fiction, and trashy romances, but funny stuff is good too. Some mysteries are OK but they’ve got to be pretty gripping. History and most nonfiction will have me snoozing, I fear.
The only sci fi I’ve read lately that might suit you were John Wyndham’s classic \*The Day of the Triffids \*(which I read in one day) and Jasper Fforde’s silly and strange _Shades of Grey_.
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### Author:  [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/4 "2011-07-30T03:31:20Z")
Maybe obvious, but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a good piece of pop-culture mystery pablum. It takes about 75 pages to find it’s legs, but it’s a good page-turner after.
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### Author:  [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/5 "2011-07-30T03:32:46Z")
I can’t remember – have you read the Bujold Vorkosigan books? The first one (Shards of Honor) also doubles as a romance. It was the sort of thing where I was all “Oh, I could put it down, really!” and then by the time I got to Memory, I realized, oops, no, I can’t actually put it down.
Orson Scott Card before '90 or so is also can’t-put-down SF for me (I particularly think Pastwatch is good, although at least one person has told me he thinks it’s boring, so YMMV). Vernor Vinge’s Fire Upon the Deep is also a good one if you like your SF on the hard side. Connie Willis, especially her earlier stuff. Diane Duane drives me nuts because she is a bit sloppy, which is one of my pet peeves with SF, but I do find her hard to put down.
As for trashy romances, I like Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion very much (though I am not a huge fan of other Heyers so far) and right now I’m reading this weird but totally addictive romance, _The Proviso_ by Moriah Jovan. The people in it are screwed up (although not quite as screwed up as the first couple of chapters make them sound… I almost gave up on it then) and also sort of Ayn-Rand-ish (they are all brilliant and beautiful and The Best at their job and awesome lovers and are internationally acclaimed for their talents as well, etc., as well as being politically conservative/libertarian) _and_ culturally Mormon (though most of the characters are either excommunicated or don’t believe)… but if you don’t mind that too much, it is really entertaining, complete with secret identities, dark secrets, tragic pasts, intrigues, attempted and successful assassinations, corporate takeovers… Yeah, have I mentioned it is a weird book? But kind of awesome too.
Oh, and I just finished Unbillable Hours by Ian Graham, which I couldn’t put down. It’s basically the story of how Ian decided he didn’t like corporate law through doing pro bono work (which he really DID like). It sounds really lame the way I just put it, and it’s not the sort of thing I normally read, but when he starts describing the pro bono case it is really interesting because he clearly very much cares about the miscarriage of justice. Even though it’s nonfic, it reads like a novel almost, only without the boring descriptive parts.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/6 "2011-07-30T03:37:15Z")
Excluding the first 2 books, I swear that the Harry Potter series really is one of the most engaging and “not put downable” series I’ve read.
I’d read the first two just for backstory, though.
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### Author:  [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/7 "2011-07-30T03:41:44Z")
The books I literally didn’t want to put down this year are:
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
**Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
Blackout - Connie Willis
In Cold Blood - Capote**
I highlighted the last three based on your preferences. _Speaker_ and _Blackout_ are just great science fiction. _In Cold Blood_ of course is non-fiction (sort-of), but it is absolutely compelling, even on a second read.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/8 "2011-07-30T09:45:45Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#):
>
> Of course I can’t find that recent “list of book threads” thread, but I don’t recall anything with that particular slant.
>
> I wanna load up my Nook for a long bus ride next weekend (hopefully from the library but I’ll buy a couple as well).
>
> I like science fiction, and trashy romances, but funny stuff is good too. Some mysteries are OK but they’ve got to be pretty gripping. History and most nonfiction will have me snoozing, I fear.
You can get a ton of free sf/fantasy off of Baen’s free library [[webscriptions.net](http://webscriptions.net)] and you can jack it onto a kindle by downloading it onto your computer and using the USB patchcord just fine. You can get damned near every single ebook format there without DRM.
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### Author:  [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/9 "2011-07-30T11:33:30Z")
I read Freakonomics in about four hours. Fascinating!
Do you like horror? The Strain by Guiermo (SP?) Del Toro and a partner I can’t remember is riveting, and the sequel was another one day book. The third book comes out in October, and I have it preordered. I have a Nook myself, but this is one of those books I love to share.
Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan - the second book is The Fall. Scary vampire/zombie creatures. I’m going to reread both in September while waiting for the third book, and I’m really looking forward to that.
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### Author:  [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/10 "2011-07-30T12:30:27Z")
I love sff and mysteries, too, but the most unputdownable book I’ve every read was Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove. It’s a huge book, but I couldn’t stop reading. Everything else I had to do was forgotten, and I blew through 960 pages in 24 hours. I don’t normally read westerns, either.
If you want to stick to mysteries, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series is fun popcorn reading. One winter I went through book after book after book.
If you haven’t read Discworld yet, I recommend it. Funny yet satiric, and some are even profound, underneath the puns and humor.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/11 "2011-07-30T15:51:02Z")
SF – Check out _Eifelheim_ (alien contact in medieval times) by Michael Flynn and _Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell.
If you think you’d like trashy soapy stuff, _Celebrity_ by Thomas Thompson. I started it one day when I’d taken my kids to the pool, and I didn’t let them out until I was finished. Poor pruney kids! I recently re-read it and it held up nicely, as soapy trash.
Also _The Little Stranger_ by Sarah Waters – haunted (?) house, psychological horror, riveting.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/12 "2011-07-30T17:46:21Z")
If you haven’t read it: _To Kill a Mockingbird_. Before I read it I (for some reason) expected it to be a bit dry- I was pleasantly surprised 🙂
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### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/13 "2011-07-30T18:29:18Z")
_Lolita_. I read it for the first time a few months ago and I was surprised at how engaging and genuinely funny it was. I tore through it in two or three sittings.
_Losing Julia_, by Jonathan Hull. A really personal slog through the trenches of the First World War interwoven with a love story.That sounds schmaltzy, but it isn’t at all. It is one of those books you live inside of until long after you finish it.
_Mystery_, by Peter Straub. Great atmospheric mystery/thriller. It’s even a page turner on re-read.
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### Author:  [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/14 "2011-07-30T18:53:21Z")
Crime and Punishment.
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/15 "2011-07-30T19:15:05Z")
[Black House](http://www.amazon.com/Black-House-Stephen-King/dp/034547063X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312053284&sr=1-2), by Peter Straub and Stephen King. Fits in the Stephen King-verse, with storylines in the worlds of the Talisman and the Dark Tower (Wolves of Calla) world.
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### Author:  [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/16 "2011-07-30T19:16:41Z")
**Helium: The Misunderstood Element**
mmm
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### Author:  [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/17 "2011-07-30T22:26:43Z")
My most recent not-put-downable is \*\*The Informationist \*\*by Taylor Stevens. It had good reviews and lived up to my expectations. Strong female protagonist–a cross between Jack Reacher and Lisbeth Salander. Interesting setting and plot; some slow (and d’uh) moments, but overall a great read. Looking forward to the author’s follow-up effort.
For trashy romance, you can’t go wrong with **Linda Howard**.
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/18 "2011-07-30T22:38:47Z")
I’ve just finished [The Book of Human Skin by Michelle Lovric](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Human-Skin-Michelle-Lovric/dp/1408809648/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312065251&sr=8-1)
It’s a love story between a noble Venetian girl in the early 1800s and her common doctor lover told from multiple POVs, including that of her psycho brother, the villain of the piece.
Yes it is historical, but it is gripping, and in no way boring- there is mystery, religion, disease, psychology…just a brilliant read.
Please consider it.
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### Author:  [@limegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/limegreen)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/19 "2011-07-30T22:52:25Z")
I just finished “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett in one afternoon, carrying my Kindle from room to room and totally ignoring my family. A fabulous story about the South and the relationships between the black maids and the white families they work for.
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-couldnt-put-down/590803/20 "2011-07-31T00:49:53Z")
“Innocent Spouse: A Memoir” by Carol Ross Joynt is quite interesting. A TV journalist’s husband suddenly dies and she finds out he committed tax fraud to the tune of owing $3 million to the IRS. She also has to be a parent to her little son and learn to run the restaurant that’s her only source of income. Quite an eye-opener.
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