Recommendations?

Got anything to recommend to anyone? Well now is your chance. List a couple of books that you think would be great for anyone, and I mean ANYONE!!! I can't wait to see what everyone says!

I enjoyed Sex Lives of Cannibals, although some parts annoyed me. But overall, I really did like reading it, so I'd recommend it.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a fantastic read.

Harpo Speaks!. Everyone should read this book. EVERYONE.

I highly recommend Sylvie Germain's Le Livre des nuits and its sequel "Nuit-d'Ambre" (Night of Amber) (both have been translated into English and are available on amazon). It is a family story set in the Ardennes, a region all wars seem to storm through, from the war of 1870 to after May 1968, but it does not sound at all like those rustic sagas French popular fiction is too full of. The writing sounds a little fussy at first but quickly grows bewitching. The tone is resolutely fantastic and dark. Even May 68 has an eerie light about it. The eponymous hero of the second book is an unsympathetic but appealing Heathcliff-like figure whose final redemption is uncertain. All the very numerous characters, including animals, from Escaut the poor horse to the old farmboy's turtledoves, are unforgettable. The forest, a major theme in Sylvie Germain's works, is as beautiful and obsessive as in Boorman's films or in "Twin Peaks". I read both in one weekend in 1993 and seldom had to re-read them since, remembering each passage so well.

I just finished THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE and highly recommend it. also,THE GIRLS, which is about cojoined twins.

IMO, you've set an impossible task. There is no book that will suit any person.

I'll give it a try;

1. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat - anyone who had a dog or wished they had a dog when growing up will enjoy this book. Although considered a youth book young an old will like it.

2. CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS - a Story of the Grand Banks by RUDYARD KIPLING

3. The Sundowners by Jon Cleary - On the back fly leaf of this book the author said that he was tired of the griping in so many recent books and he wanted to write; "a novel in which the people weren't troubled by neuroses and didn't blame the world for their own shortcomings."
And in this Jon Cleary succeeded very well. This is a feel good book from beginning to end. when you finish the book you'll sigh and say "wish I was there"

4. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway - A collection of stories of Hemingways days in Paris in the 20's as part of the "Lost Generation". My favorite one is where he discribes a young girl who enters a cafe. We are used to thinking of artists painting anything they see to hone their craft. This one you see a writer doing the same thing.

5. Yeager: An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager - Chuck Yeager was the first pilot to break the sound barrier in the X-15. His autobiography reads like a hollywood script. A fighter pilot in WW2 who was shot down and spent severval months fighting with the French underground untill they could arrange his rescue. He was a natural pilot who could fly anything.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and the rest of that series.

No more dog books for me Ever! The dreadful Edgar finished me off for good.
Marley was wonderful reading ~ till the end. I just don't have it in me to make it through these books.

Sparrow is the books I usually suggest to answer this question. It is a fantastic read.

mckait - really? None at all? Have you ever tried reading You Are A Dog by LT author Terry Bain? It's hilarious, and sweet, and touching, and no dogs die. He has a cat one, too, but I'm not a cat person so I haven't read it.

No dogs die? Are you sure? * off to have a look*

I have zero self control~

*blush*

I bought the dog book, and put the cat book on my wish list. I will have to think
about that one.. I have indoor cats, and outside cats distress me.
( yes, I know that's a little crazy.. so?)

Enslaved by Ducks and Fowl Weather by Bob Tarte were mostly entertaining, but some animals met untimely ends....

yay! I hope you like it! I'm not a fan of books where dogs die (Call of the Wild almost made me throw up), but I love this book.

I LOVE wolves. Just seeing pictures of them fills me up~ I avoid Wolf books, much as I would a dog book. My co-worker told me no dogs died in Edgar.
You know, she just didn't realize that they did! Imagine! I had suspicions about Marley before I read it, but...

mckait, you & I are birds of a feather......I cannot handle anything where an animal is hurt or dies either. My husband even knows me well enough to immediately change the channel on television if there is even a hint of anything "bad" happening to an animal.... I feel like I should be able to handle things like that, because bad things do happen sometimes, but I just can't stand reading about it (even in fiction) or seeing it in movies or on television......and I can't help it.

If and when I do happen to stumble upon something like that.....my insides just seem to crumble a little bit, and I feel literally sick. I guess it's just that in this world, there are the true innocents.....the animals.....and when something bad befalls one of the innocents, it hurts me to my soul.

I guess I'm too sensitive for my own good. Like I said, I just can't help it. I think you are like that too.

I would reccomend:

The Book Thief byMarkus Zusak

The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up by Rich Blake--a short non-fiction book about a man who awoke from his coma ten years after going into it.

I would second Marley and Me. It made me laugh, but I also cried.

Rarely am I able to recommend a book that I think will appeal to readers of every stripe, but Luis Alberto Urrea's extraordinary 2005 novel The Hummingbird's Daughter is just such a book. As majestically entertaining as it is beautifully written, Urrea's novel is guaranteed to captivate even the most jaded reader, and I really can't recommend this wonderful book any higher.

porchy, my friend.. I am. I agree it is something that happens. It is hard to deal with. When I worked at the vet clinic ( for 7 years) plenty of bad things happened. I cried almost every day. I will never forget Samson, the yellow lab. He was the first dog I ever had a hand in trying to resuscitate. We lost him.
The last dog Jo and I had to resuscitate was my own sweet Duncan.

They hadn't diagnosed him.. it had been ten days, and they still didn't now why he was failing. I had only adopted him 4 months prior ( he was about 4, I got him from a sanctuary). They were going to do exploratory surgery. I no longer worked there, but believe me I was right there. They put him under, and he stopped breathing. That time we got him back. I told them to put him on and IV, copy his records for me and I took him home. I gave him a few hours, and when he was stronger put him in the care for a specialty clinic in Akron. They diagnosed him by looking at the first bloodwork that had been done at my local clinic. Imagine my fury. It was nearly two weeks after that initial bloodwork had been done. Anyway, it is Addison's and he is on meds, and does well.

I tried to learn that you can't save them all~but for me it is like algebra. I just can't learn that.

I too have to change the channel. I used to watch the Emergency Vet on Animal Planet but had to stop. I wanted to see if there was something I could learn from it.. but, I always knew which ones would die.

We are indeed birds of a feather.....

Barb my co-worker is baffled that I can read books where people die, but not animals. It is different...

Hummingbird's Daughter sounds good!

Mckait and others with dog-dying issues in books....I just finished reading Izzy and Lenore by Jon Katz, and no dogs die in that book. Although, there are some very emotional scenes with hospice patients. Izzy has an incredibly sensitive soul and is able to reach those people who are living in a fog of pain and/or dementia. Recommended.

#18.......that sounds like a good one. I just put it on my Bookmooch wishlist. Thanks!

mckait......your vet stories made me feel weak. I always try to understand how anyone could be strong enough to work at a vet's office.....strong emotionally, I mean. You'd have to be a special kind of human to handle it, I'm sure.

I'm sorry of what you had to witness while working there. Also very sorry to hear of what Duncan went through.

Every time I've had to take one of my cats for euthanasia over the past 25 years has been, without question, the most traumatizing times of my life. I am not a frequent cryer, in fact I rarely cry anymore. But if I start thinking about my "fur kids" that I've lost....I'll break down and bawl like a baby. My two boys are about 4 1/2 years old now and I already dread "the day" that inevitably will come. I don't know how I'll get through it, yet again. It's tough.

......I do apologize for hijacking this thread......sorry folks!!

Back to recommendations!!!

Donna, thank you~ on my list as well....

Porchy~ There were good things that happened too...
acupuncture does amazing things... remember that~

And sometimes, I was able to help in small ways.

oh, and me too, sorry for hijacking the thread. :-/

I have to recommend the Mark Doty memoir, Dog Years. Just a wonderful book.