Recommend a Book

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:7e0749c8-69ae-4ba9-9414-7bdbb9167b5e">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Recommend a Book : I like some Shakespeare. I love Hamlet and enjoy Romeo & Juliet. But others I ciould do without. I think I was the only English major at my school who couldn't stand most of the "classics." I don't care to reread Twain or Faulker a million times or quote them every chance I get. <strong>The only Faulker I like is As I Lay Dying, which apparently in the snobby English world means I have no taste in literature (according to my class at the time, at least).</strong>
Posted by Seshat411[/QUOTE]

That's funny, because I LOVE As I Lay Dying and I've been told I'm insane because the book is hard ot get through and makes 0 sense. I think "My mother is a fish." is the best chapter of any book!

Can't say I like Mark Twain very much, though.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Ditto everyone else on the Jane Austen thing. I fel uneducated when I say this, but I prefer the movies based on her books to the books. The Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility is one of my all time favorite movies. (Alan Rickman! Swoon!) But the books are a little... dry and hard to get into. I've only read P&P and Emma, though.

The issue with Wuthering Heights is that it is 1) kind of dry in a Jane Austen way and 2) full of awful human beings and 3) 90% is told in flashback. Backstory: a new tenant of a great house wants to know more about his landlord. He sits the housekeeper down and over a period of time, she tells him about 30 years of history. She adores Cathy and Cathy's daughter, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Cathy and Heathcliff are both nasty, self-absorbed people. So that's where it differs from Jane Austen, because I freaking love Elizabeth Bennet and the Dashwoods.

laurenclaire1386

Oh, and I just saw a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so Mery, maybe that might be more up your alley

Brie2010

My favorite book ever is Little Women.  If you haven't read it as an adult, you're missing out.  I read it at least once a year.

maratea

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:692bbc35-ec8c-41ac-a7b4-b653b2deb8fc">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]Oh, and I just saw a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so Mery, maybe that might be more up your alley :)
Posted by laurenclaire1386[/QUOTE]

I couldn't get into that one at all. There's also Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Money- I really like the Interpreter of Maladies. Along the same line, I love A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies: Stories by John Murray.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:692bbc35-ec8c-41ac-a7b4-b653b2deb8fc">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]Oh, and I just saw a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, so Mery, maybe that might be more up your alley :)
Posted by laurenclaire1386[/QUOTE]

My brother got that for me for Christmas! They also have Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. I'm planning on reading the first one soon. I also have a book by the same author called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Night_Sprite

Thanks ladies.  My Goodreads "To Read" list has gotten much beefier.

maratea

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:d106e7c5-b724-4fad-844c-afe06e843310">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]I read The Awakening in high school and really liked it. Its pretty short though.
Posted by lovethebeach16[/QUOTE]

I absolutely hated this book at first, but I read it again and it's one of my favorites now. I was just so angry about the whole story, but I think as I've gotten older, I understand more.

vparmley

I highly recommend Three Cups of Tea; it's by Greg Mortenson and another author (whose name I can't recall off the top of my head.) I'm a sucker and cry at movies all the time, but in my years of reading I've never cried while reading a book until this one.

KelleyLR

One book you want to stay away from is the Red Badge of Courage.  I wanted to stab my eyes out.  Thank goodness for Cliff Notes.

laurenclaire1386

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:8c1e2757-9322-4fee-8658-e5ec96b7eded">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]I highly recommend Three Cups of Tea; it's by Greg Mortenson and another author (whose name I can't recall off the top of my head.) I'm a sucker and cry at movies all the time, but in my years of reading I've never cried while reading a book until this one.
Posted by vparmley[/QUOTE]
The Green Mile made me bawl. Snot dribbling, can't catch your breath type crying.

Moneypenny424

You ladies have given me some great ideas too!

Mara, I will check out this John Murray book!

Night_Sprite

There are some stories, like the Green Mile, that I just avoid because I don't like to be completely and utterly depressed while reading.  Depressing is okay, but despondent weeping is not.

[Deleted User]

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:e46612f0-ce45-4379-82c2-73d3363f9110">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Recommend a Book : That's funny, because I LOVE As I Lay Dying and I've been told I'm insane because the book is hard ot get through and makes 0 sense. I think "My mother is a fish." is the best chapter of any book! Can't say I like Mark Twain very much, though.
Posted by msmerymac[/QUOTE]

That's interesting because I've found it to be the easiest of his novels for me to understand. And Jewel is one of my all-time favorite characters. I even wrote one of my senior seminar papers on him and why he is the hero of the story.

Moneypenny424

I also really liked A Thousand Splendid Suns and Kite Runner.

Night_Sprite

Kite Runner is already on my list.  My dad borrowed it and hasn't given it back yet.

[Deleted User]

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:79dfa3f9-43a3-4526-8e51-4ccbb15930e1">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Recommend a Book : I'm one of the few people I know who liked The Iliad better than The Odyssey, although I liked Odyssey very much.
Posted by laurenclaire1386[/QUOTE]

I love them both, but I think The Odyssey wins for me because of my professor. He was so passionate about the book and looked at it from such weird angles that you couldn't help but just be amazed. His whole focus was on 'infanticidal culture' (even wrote a book on it) so he took The Odyssey in some strange directions.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_recommend-book?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:17Discussion:59ff067f-c08d-4a50-a2de-b4f16ea3232cPost:31b4c217-845f-4ed4-9491-4ce834598630">Re: Recommend a Book</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Recommend a Book : That's interesting because I've found it to be the easiest of his novels for me to understand. And Jewel is one of my all-time favorite characters. I even wrote one of my senior seminar papers on him and why he is the hero of the story.
Posted by Seshat411[/QUOTE]

I love Jewel too and I love that interpretation. I need to read the book again.

I read it in an AP English class, not college, and most of the books we read that year could be interpreted in a lot of different ways rather than a straight narration (unreliable narrators, etc, which ALL of the narrators in AILD are), plus it was something we were told to read over the summer, so that's why I think most people had trouble with it. Our teacher actually had us read it again at the beginning of the year and went through it with us because so many people said they hated it.

Trishes

Ender's Game

Watership Down

[Deleted User]

Books are for rich people.

aprovencher21

I love The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.  I guess those are books you're supposed to read.

If you like historical fiction I just finished an amazing book called The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner.  Such a great story about a not as well known woman in history.

superheroprincess

I absolutely loved the Grapes of Wrath in high school.

I also liked Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Predjudice and Little Women.

Didn't see the big deal with Wuthering Heights though...