1. desz Says:
   May 25th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

   Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph by C. Vivian Stringer

   Vivian Stringer is the coach of the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team. This is the team which suffered certain disparaging remarks from Don Imus. I feel there are great life lessons to learn from winning coaches. Successful coaches that can motivate a team to win and win big usually have great insight into perseverance and overcoming adversity.

   I found the hard work ethic that Vivian Stringer witnessed by her father and which she inherited, a valuable lesson that many people can benefit from today. I was inspired by the godly way she handled the entire Imus situation with dignity and class.

2. Wayne Schulz Says:
   May 25th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

   I love James Patterson. His books feature quick chapters and are perfect vacation reads. Typically I read one book within two days - start to finish.

   Last summer I brought his book Honeymoon with me on vacation. It’s a great murder mystery where the action literally starts in chapter one. There’s no tedious build up to get right into the action.

   I’ve seen this book on closeout in Barnes & Noble — and recommend it highly.

3. Judie Lipsett Says:
   May 25th, 2008 at 7:37 pm

   I enjoy reading Patterson’s books, too. I just finished 7th Heaven; I most like his Women’s Murder Club and Alex Cross series.

4. jdramseur2 Says:
   May 25th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

   Paper Lion by George Plimpton. I miss football right now.

5. paschott Says:
   May 25th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

   One book? Always making this tough.

   Well, the last non-fiction book I read all the way through was by Tim Kimmel - Raising Kids Who Turn Out Right. Good book on parenting. Currently going through his “Raising Truly Great Kids” (or something like that - always get the titles a little confused). Still, he has a great philosophy on parenting to raise kids who are great, not due to money/fame/power, but because they truly love other people. He focuses on integrity and character even when that’s hard to maintain.

   For non-fiction, I’ve read through several Terry Pratchett stories recently, “Wintersmith”, “Thud”, “Night Watch” just being a few of them. If you don’t know who Terry Pratchett is, just do a search. The chances are pretty good that if you read this site, you’ll enjoy Terry’s works. Fantasy with a comedy twist to it, but well worth it. Not slapstick comedy, but sometimes the comedy that has you reading and realizing well into the book that there has been a running gag going since the beginning. Other times it flat out pokes fun at life/culture as we know it. His works have never failed to entertain me.

   With my daughter - just finished an old “Happy Hollisters” book by Jerry West and some “Cam Jansen” books. She likes those. I’m kind of surprised by the Hollister books as those are relatively little-known from the 1940’s. Still, they’re not a bad kids series. They show their age at times with the way culture and speech have moved on, but are still decent enough for kids.

6. Elodie Says:
   May 26th, 2008 at 3:57 am

   I haven’t read in a while (it’s horrible, I read SO MUCH usually… I’ll go to the library and pick up a ten book pile, haha) because my libraries here in france don’t have the YA fiction section I love–and digging through all those white-covered, bland looking “adult books” just does not interest me much. But a few days ago I figured out that my library back in Hawaii has ebooks for rent online–which I can rent from here in france since I know my library number! I looove my hawaii system library. It’s seriously unbeatable.
   SO anyways the book I read is one of these ebooks. Not the first time I read it, but it is definitely awesome: Lirael, by Garth Nix (part of the Abhorsen series). It’s about a world split in two, where one side is powered by magic and very medieval/renaissance, and the other (what we see of it) seems very like england a few decades ago. You quickly realize the evil, dead things are pretty much hyperactive zombies–kinda creepy, haha! But the story is just so amazingly creative–and it really takes you on a trip through that world. There’s a good reason this was one of my favorite books when I was younger and still is!

7. melvynadam Says:
   May 26th, 2008 at 5:57 am

   Last book I read and enjoyed was Next by Michael Crichton.

   The book was amazing and held me from the opening sentence: “Everything in this book is fiction, except for the parts that aren’t.” How can you not love that sentence?!

   As a tech lover it’s always interesting to read papers by futurologists and see exactly where they think we’re headed. Michael Crichton always heavily researches his stuff and is a very entertaining author.

   Recently I saw a blog post about a technology which is exactly the type of thing covered by this book. Google “Flogos” and you’ll see that we’re on the way to the future described by Crichton.

8. canino Says:
   May 26th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

   Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner. As the administration is winding down a lot of people are going to be asking, what just happened? Weiner’s National Book Award winner is a sober read (it was on an ipod ok and the narrator Stefan Rudnicki is very talented with the many foreign accents, unintentional humor lightens the load of uncovered history.) Add Legacy to your summer list.

9. Wayne Schulz Says:
   May 26th, 2008 at 7:23 pm

   When this contest winds down it would be great if we could summarize all these books. I’d love to pick up a few to read based on recommendations.

10. n1s Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 12:11 am

    i didn’t read much over the winter except for “a year of endless sorrow” which was ok, but didn’t really make me want to ever read it again. william gibson’s spook country was a good but predictable fun ride but i’d still say that pattern recognition was WAY better and can’t wait for it to be made into a movie. which brings me to home land, a rollicking fun read that’s witty and fast. i can’t wait to read it again, sometime. once i’ve gotten through the other 10 books lying next to my bed waiting for me to attack them.

11. uzziah0 Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    There are a lot of SciFi books I really have liked. I’ve even gone to a few SciFi fan shows and met some of the authors. There are quite a few authors that live in the Chicago area, and close enough to visit for a weekend.

    Nancy Kress - Beggars in Spain (first of a trilogy)

    Issac Asimov - anything from the Foundation books and Benford - Bear - Brin - “The Killer Bs” added to the Foundation stories and Roger McBride Allen’s Caliban stories add a sort of side trilogy to Foundation stories

    that’s just a few off the top of my head.

12. renzokuken Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 11:10 am

    The last good book i read was “Love in the time of Cholera” by Garcia Marquez. It was a re-read actually.
    I really love the way Marquez reason for Ariza’s rapid urge for having sex with so many women while still knowing by heart the love of his life.

13. Judie Lipsett Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

    I also want to throw this one out there, for anyone who is looking for something different - Thorpe, by Mary Dutton. It was written in 1967, and I first read it when I was in 6th grade. The story made a huge impact on me at the time; the characters were so vivid and real, and it dealt with racial issues that I had no experience with.

    I hunted it down as an adult and re-read it, and I was shocked to find that it was just as good and haunting as I remembered. As far as I know, this is the only book Ms. Dutton ever wrote, and if you can get your hands on a copy, I think it will affect anyone who reads it.

    http://www.amazon.com/Thorpe-M.....B000CB1AS8

14. FastJohn Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    Excalibur, by Bernard Cornwell. It’s the last of a trilogy about England’s Arthur, but it turns the legend on its head (or at least its side). For instance, Arthur’s the son of Uther Pendragon, but he’s NEVER a king; Lancelot is a cowardly braggart; Sagramore is black. Cornwell, the author of the Napoleanic-era Sharpe’s series, and a series about the American Civil War, and yet another series about an English longbowman, writes historical fiction so well you come to feel IMMERSED in the era. I can’t wait for his next book.

15. slee Says:
    May 27th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiassen. It’s just a fun book with some zany characters. It includes one of Hiassen’s craziest characters, Skink. Skink is a backwoods, roadkill-eating, idealist in a flowered shower cap who just happens to have been a former governor of Florida. The novel just continues in the same vein.

16. mikeya Says:
    May 28th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    I just finished two books nearly simultaneously. The first one - ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut - was a re-read for probably the 20th time or so. It is a book that I have enjoyed since the late 70’s when I discovered him. I love the juxtaposition of a WWII anti-war novel, a sentimental tale of time lost told through science fiction, and the continuous biting cynicism and hopeful humanism that is Vonnegut’s trademark.

    I also read ‘Grand Theft Childhood’ by researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson of Harvard Medical School. It is an excellent read - especially for all of us parents of tweens to teens who are fans of video games and other potentially violent media. It is the most objective look at violence in media I have read, with some interesting conclusions that go well beyond the simple-minded ‘will playing Halo turn my child into a serial killer?’ Highly recommended!

17. grants04 Says:
    May 29th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    I just finished Santa Fe Dead and Shoot Him If He Runs, both by Stuart Woods. I also love James Patterson and am about to read Seventh Heaven. If you like Patterson, you’ll love Woods. He has three main characters with story lines, Stone Barrinton, Ed Eagle, and Holly Barker. Each is intriguing and I enjoy all 3 series.

    I’m going to spend many hours this summer carpooling the kids to swim team, writing camp and the like and hanging out while they participate. I would love to have a good book handy for the time periods I can catch a few pages!

18. Judie Lipsett Says:
    May 29th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

    grants04 - I totally enjoy Stuart Woods, too. The first book of his that I read was ‘Under the Lake’, and since then I have been hooked. As far as major characters, you are forgetting one of his greatest! His first book introduced the back story to Will Lee, and all of the books that follow which included him were pretty darn amazing. Start with ‘Chiefs’(it’s about Will’s grandfather), then read ‘Run Before the Wind’, ‘Grass Roots’, ‘The Run”, ‘Capitol Crimes’…I may need to bust them out and re-read. This made me remember how much I enjoyed them.

    http://www.stuartwoods.com/html/pastbooks.html

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.