# Recommend to me some things to read... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 13, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849 "2010-01-13T22:55:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/1 "2010-01-13T22:55:29Z")
I need some reading recommendations. Here’s what I’ve read lately and loved/liked: Water for Elephants, The Life of Pi, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Stephen King’s The Long Walk, Let the Right One In. I like true crime and interesting memoirs, good horror, good apocalyptic fiction, good mysteries with twists like Derailed. Here’s what I found unreadable lately: Footfall (a big disappointment since I liked Lucifer’s Hammer), The Widows of Eastwick, and The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, the very good movie notwithstanding. So - any recommendations? I’ve got a few credits to swap… ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/2 "2010-01-14T16:57:31Z")
I don’t know much about the books you’ve listed, so I’ll just take a couple of stabs at it. _The Little Stranger_, by Sarah Waters. It’s a ghost story set in post WWII England and I picked it as the best book I read in 2009. Creepy. _Gentlemen and Players_, by Joanne Harris. A mystery at an all-boys school. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/3 "2010-01-14T17:07:02Z")
You might enjoy The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Also, have you read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant? ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/4 "2010-01-14T17:14:15Z")
The Road, Cormac McCarthy Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/5 "2010-01-14T20:23:20Z")
Thanks guys. Yes, I read The Road. It was good. I keep seeing The Red Tent and passing it up. Thanks for the recommendations - I’ll check them out! It’s good to get the names of ones I haven’t heard of. ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/6 "2010-01-14T20:39:28Z")
_The Art of Racing in the Rain_ by Garth Stein is a great book and it received a good review by the author of Water for Elephants. _Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives_ by David Eagleman has been my recommendation to everyone lately. I wanted to devour the whole book in one sitting, but I forced myself to put it down after each vignette. It is truly a fantastic book. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/7 "2010-01-14T22:23:49Z")
NONFICTION: Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt. It’s about driving. not drugs. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/8 "2010-01-14T22:40:04Z")
These don’t strictly fit your criteria but all, IMHO, are worth reading. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Strange but True by John Searle The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte King Rat by China Mieville Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallender mysteries. Anything by Anne Tyler esp. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and the Accidental Tourist Anything by David Mitchell esp. Black Swan Green and Cloud Atlas Anthing by Walter Tevis esp. The Queen’s Gambit and The Man Who Fell to Earth (his best book “Mockingbird” is out of print, unfortunately). Anything by Robertson Davies esp. The Deptford Trilogy and the Cornish Trilogy ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/9 "2010-01-16T22:42:47Z")
For the classics, I loved “Rebecca” and “Babbitt” and “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” ---
**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/10 "2010-01-17T17:34:14Z")
Any of Martin Cruz Smith’s “Arkady Renko” novels – _Gorky Park_, _Polar Star_, _Red Square_, _Wolves Eat Dogs_ and _Stalin’s Ghost_. Each takes part during a different stage of recent Russian history, from the Soviet period through today. The great thing about them is that they are easily found in used bookstores or places like Salvation Army thrift shops and stores like Value Village. If you like lighter reads, there’s always good old Mickey Spillane (especially the Mike Hammer novels), and a lot of new hard-boiled detective fiction from Hard Case Crime: [http://www.hardcasecrime.com/](http://www.hardcasecrime.com/) This is the kind of stuff I like to read when I’m not reading history or true crime. Suggestions for true crime: \*The Steven Truscott Story \*and \*Who Killed Lynne Harper? \*by Bill Trent, along with \*Until You Are Dead \*by Julian Sher, all having to do the the Steven Truscott case, which is a notorious wrongful conviction case in Canadian history. Another Canadian case you might have not heard of: the Wilbert Coffin case. Books to check out here include Jacques Hebert’s _The Coffin Affair_. There are also numerous books written around several famous cases which I’ve found interesting: The Black Dahlia JFK Assassination The Harry Oakes case The Profumo Affair most of which can be found by researching online. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-to-me-some-things-to-read/524849/11 "2010-01-17T17:44:10Z")
**Zombie** , by Joyce Carol Oates, is a short novel about a serial killer. Really messed-up. **Under the Skin** , by Michel Faber, is beautifully written, and by turns sad, humorous, satirical, ironic, and disturbing.