Read This Next: 500 of the Best Books You'll Ever Read

Book lovers always love getting new reading recommendations, and I certainly love reading these books-about-books and "discovering" new authors and books. Despite the fact that I am obviously predisposed to loving this book, Read This Next is FANTASTIC!

Read This Next is organized into the following major sections: Love, Memoir, Family, History, Politics, Humor, Work and Money, War, Religion, and Death. Each section has 12 recommendations as well as several "Read These Too" suggestions, and "Bonus Books." All of these things make Read This Next a wonderful treasure trove of bookish goodness, but the absolute best part of this book are the book group discussion questions. Some of the questions are so hilarious that I have to give you some show more examples...

From the discussion guide to Camille by Alexandre Dumas, fils:
In most twentieth-century romance novels, the lovers end up together at last, happy and safe. Which is more romantic - a happy ending or one where someone tragically croaks? (As we know, by the end of most twenty-first century romance novels, both lovers are vampires, making this a moot point.)

From the discussion guide to All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot:
All Creatures Great and Small popularized all things veterinary, and inspired many children to go to vet school - although frankly the image of vetting here is not very appealing. It seems to involve a lot of being stepped on by hoofed beasts, standing in freezing stables, and intimate relations with excrement of all sorts. What is it that's so appealing about Herriot's life?

And my personal favorite, from the discussion guide to Read This Next by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark:
In this book, Barrington Hewcott has said he sought to create an allegorical system in which "books" represent the Reagan administration, "authors" are the Soviet Union, and the color red is former attorney general Edwin Meese. Do you think readers even notice complicated allegories like these? If they don't, do the allegories still work away in their unconscious, influencing their beliefs and feelings? Also, by reading this book, can you tell whether Hewcott is a Communist? Do you think he may subliminally have turned you into a Communist? Go to the mirror. Can you see the first signs of Communism forming on your skin? Any beadiness in the eyes, or weakness in the chin? If you see these telltale signs, turn yourself in to the authorities immediately.

If that's not enough to make you pick up this book nothing will Mr./Mrs. Stoneface, and I request that you humorless turkeys stop reading this review at once! show less

I am frankly astounded at how much I enjoyed reading a book that is, in essence, a collection of book discussion questions. The summaries are amusing and useful, they almost never give too much away about the book, and the questions are actually similar to things my book discussion ends up talking about (one part thematic, one part way too personal). I'm even more astounded given that the authors' previous book is [How Not to Write a Book], which I thought was a complete disaster as both humor and writing advice.

This book was hilarious, irreverent, and informative. One hundred and twenty book descriptions are each followed by lists of book group questions. The questions range from profound to ridiculous, sometimes changing from one to the other within the same question. Then there are hundreds of other brief recommendations. My copy is is now bristling with sticky notes marking the most interesting titles.

There are plenty of suggestions here, some of them obscure enough to be intriguing. The authors had an excellent idea—somewhat like Nancy Pearl’s books, where reading one thing leads you to another, and then two more, and so on. However, a lot of the humor is sophomoric at best, and sometimes downright offensive. Read it for the push toward forgotten books.

Of the 500 books recommended in this book, I've read 29 of them, have some on my to-read list, and glanced through a few more, which I don't think is too bad. Many of the books listed that I haven't read, I've never even heard of. This is a good place to look off the beaten track for literary finds, and such a wide range of genres and writers and writing styles are represented that there will be several books included to please even the most finicky person. I wish I had read this before I started my around-the-world reading challenge, cause there are a lot of international recommendations that look very appealing.

So far, I'm not sure this will be a good read but I guess I'll plug along & see.
Well, I've finished it. It seemed to me that the authors didn't like a lot of the books they "reviewed" and I wasn't able to draw from it whether I would want to read many of the books or not. I did come up with a list of books I would like to at least try, though. I wasn't sure sometimes whether they were joking or serious. There of course were genre I wasn't interested in but I read it anyway to see if there was anything I might want to read. Can't say it was my favorite book, but found some useful information.

Searching for the next great read for any book lover can be an exciting and challenging experience. The element of surprise is often at hand. Like, wow this is not what I expected. Or the, I wish this would never end experience. It can certainly be a crap shoot at times. This book by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman will certainly add to the experience and is worth reading for entertainment value if nothing else. I enjoyed their witty commentary and asides throughout the book's descriptions and takes. It is skewed mainly to the fiction reader of which I am not, but I will certainly take on some of these tomes on what they had to say, peeking my curiosity. Enough reading material here to last a life time, and beyond.