Help pick the next book I read!

Cafe Society
1

What shall I read next? There are oh so many others (including re-reads of Harry Potter 1-6), but these are stacked closest at hand. You may also suggest amusing combinations and order of reading. Think quick–I’m 62 pages from the end of Misquoting Jesus.

Non-fiction
Berner, Card, & Millman: The Great Snape Debate: Is Snape Harry Potter’s Friend/Foe?
Collins: Banvard’s Folly: Thirteen Tales of People who Didn’t Change the World
El-Hai: The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness
Hirsch: Cheating Destiny: Living with Diabetes, America’s Biggest Epidemic
Houston & Houston: Farewell to Manzanar
Lamb: Vietnam, Now
Morris: If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the Wizards
Mortenson & Relin: Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time
Nafisis: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Plotkin: Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice
Schwartz: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Slater: Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century
Thwe: From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey
Templer: Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam
Winchester: The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Fiction
Brooks: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Dorsey: A Paradigm of Earth
Lethem & Scholz:* Kafka Americana*
Lewycka: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Pessl: Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Sage: *Magick * (Septimus Heape, Book 1)
Welsh: Trainspotting

Difficult to Classify
Hodgman: The Areas of My Expertise

2

Wow, all of these sound good. The only one of these books that I have read is Farewell to Manzanar. It’s unforgettable. Heartbreaking. One of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.

3

Darn. Some good books there…I would recommend Winchester’s Meaning of Everything (have you read the The Surgeon of Crowthorne?) for your non-fiction needs and World War Z for the fiction.

4

I third the nomination for The Meaning of Everything - you can’t go wrong with that one. It’s great for learning about something real in a lighter, more Bill Bryson-y way.

5

I’m reading WWZ right now- I highly recommend it.
I’ve finished THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS (by Katherine Paterson who wrote BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA)- loved it!

Ironically in light of your reading Ehrman’s MISQUOTING JESUS, I’m also reading Ben Witherington III’s WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH JESUS: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History-Why We Can Trust The Bible. Which I also recommend.

6

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is really good. Highly recommended, esp. if you are a literature geek.

7

Me too. It’s amazing. The interview with the downed female pilot had me in tears. And the interview with the two Japanese men.

I’m not familiar with any of the other books on the list. That’s quite a list!

8

Nope–I’ve read The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary though. It looks like Winchester got his money’s worth!

9

I just got WWZ in from Amazon yesterday. I just finished Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines earlier today and ran to B&N to buy A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez, because the author was having a signing. Ended up also buying Goblin Hero (Hines), Prom Dates From Hell (Rosemary Clement-Moore, who happened to be there and who signed my copy), and Dies The Fire (S.M. Stirling.)

Now I have eight new books in my house, to go with the probably twenty unread titles I already have sitting around.

I say use a random number generator to pick your next one.

10

I’d go for the lobotomy book, but that’s just me. :: insert vacant smilie ::

11

Okay, going with World War Z for fiction. Non-fiction still to be determined.

12

Okay, I’ve finished World War Z.

On to Berner, Card, & Millman: The Great Snape Debate: Is Snape Harry Potter’s Friend/Foe?