Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Ooh--I second If I Stay and The Martian.

This is a great prompt!

Adult Fiction:
Cat's Eye
Watch Me Disappear
The Unseen World

Mystery/Thriller:
Not a Sound
The Secret Place

Sci-Fi:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

YA:
The Impossible Knife of Memory
More Than This
The Accident Season
Outrun the Moon
All the Bright Places

Middle Grade:
The Way to Bea
Summerlost
My Life with the Liars
Ms. Bixby's Last Day

Memoir:
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

It's hard to pick what to rec!

Mysteries
C.S. Harris's Sebastian St Cyr series
Alan Bradley's Flavia DeLuce series
Relic and the rest of the Pendergest series by Preston & Child
The Zig Zag Girl
J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas series (near future SF though after a while it can get formulaic)
The Mystery of Nevermore (This would also count for LGBT)
Infected: Prey (Sort of SF (gene tampering), also counts as LGBT)

Steampunk
Chasing the Star Garden
The Aeronaut's Windlass
The Glow of Luminiferous Aether on Tinsel (short story, also LGBT)

Sci-Fi
Admiral (set on another planet)
Potato Surprise: A Brimstone Prequel (set on another planet, LGBT)
Invictus (time travel)

Fantasy & Urban Fantasy
The Supernatural Enhancements
Sandman Slim
Jim C. Hines's Libriomancy series (also good for book set in a library)
Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boy series (also counts as YA)
Dark Alchemy
Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series
The Eterna Files

Young Adult
Jackaby
The Screaming Staircase
The Fog Diver (also steampunk)

LGBT
For these I'll just give authors because it's hard to pick just one from them

Carole Cummings
Kim Fielding
Shira Anthony
Sarah Madison
Jana Denardo
Jamie Fessenden
Lex Chase
Grace R. Duncan

Some of my top reads in 2017:
Exit West
The Windfall
I See You
It
The Color Purple (I recommend the audiobook)
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens (the audio version is a must!)
The Wife Between Us
The Hate U Give
And Then There Were None
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood (I highly recommend the audio version)
Thirteen Reasons Why
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Firefly Lane
Salt to the Sea
Fool
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things
The Invisible Bridge (historical fiction about a family of Hungarian Jews during WWII)
The Mothers

The Problem with Forever
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Warcross
Fruits Basket, Vol. 1
Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 1
Orange 1
Forbidden
Choker
All the Bright Places
My Heart and Other Black Holes
P.S. I Like You
The Hunger Games
The Declaration
Forget Tomorrow
Infinity
Gone

Books I will recommend to anyone who asks:

The Princess Bride
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (all 7 books in the series)
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Hobbit
Thirteen Reasons Why
To Kill a Mockingbird
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Pride and Prejudice
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Book Thief
The Chronicles of Narnia
Lilac Girls
The Lightning Thief (all 5 books of this series)
The Lost Hero (all 5 books of this series)
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
The Paper Magician (the entire series that is out so far)

I recommend the following books:

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (also it's set at sea). Everyone is a horrible person in this book, but in such a fascinating way. Katherine Anne Porter's prose is masterful, and every scene is a pleasure--a very dark and twisted pleasure.
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Asne Seierstad. This is horrific in a very real and not-fun way, but I still couldn't put it down. I learned so much, and spent a lot of time thinking about different approaches to criminal justice afterward.
Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod by Gary Paulsen. This is a delightful, fascinating, hilarious book about a woefully unprepared man who decided to run the Iditarod and the dogs who made it possible/impossible. So great. There is a disturbing scene with violence against an animal, though (not on the part of the author), so be warned.
Kindred by Octavia Butler. Oh man did I love this book.
Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson. I desperately wish to go to a camp for hardcore lady types now.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. I rarely like books of short stories, but this one is so beautifully crafted.

Christy wrote: "I recommend the following books:

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (also it's set at sea). Everyone is a horrible person in this book, but in such a fascinating way. Katherine A..."

thank you. These all sound like good reads. Better yet, there are at least three that hadn't ever crossed my book path.

Shelly wrote: "Christy wrote: "I recommend the following books:

Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (also it's set at sea). Everyone is a horrible person in this book, but in such a fascinating ..."

Well this just made my day! Thank you!

Some of these have already been mentioned, but I'll add my recommendation. These are in no particular order.

The Night Circus
Americanah
The Nightingale
The Kite Runner
A Prayer for Owen Meany (one of my all-time fave books)
A Man Called Ove
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
The Japanese Lover
Alias Grace
The Blind Assassin
Bel Canto
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Bookseller of Kabul
Middlesex

Here are some of my favorite books in the entire world:

Me Before You
The Nightingale
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Thirteenth Tale
Meddling Kids

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
The Shining
Lyrebird Hill
The Ice Beneath Her (also Nordic Noir)
Burial Rites
You (also set in a book store)
Mr. Mercedes
Fingersmith (also LGBTQ+ protagonist)
The Woman in Cabin 10 (also set at sea)
The Redbreast (also Nordic Noir)
The Phantom of the Opera (also a musical)

Books that I absolutely love right now:

All the Light We Cannot See
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Everything I Never Told You
Station Eleven
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
The Handmaid's Tale
Pride and Prejudice
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The Book Thief
The Things They Carried
Never Let Me Go
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Mosquitoland

Chrissy wrote: "My 5 star books from this year:
Our Dreams Might Align (short stories, small publisher)
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
[book:The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet|2273..."

Thanks for the list! The Song of Achilles sounds really good!

Kelly wrote: "My favorite reads of 2017:

Perfect, this has two books from my TBR pile, just what I was hoping for ;)

Here are a few favorites of mine, old and new, across all sorts of genres:

ENGLISH

YA:
The Whispering Mountain
The Name of the Star
Eleanor & Park
Fangirl
Ready Player One
The Memory Game
The Fault in Our Stars
The Lying Game series
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson series and its spin-off)

Thrillers:
Behind Closed Doors
Suicide Forest
December Park
11/22/63
Little Black Lies
Sacrifice
Now You See Me
Byrne & Balzano series by Richard Montanari
Anything by Agatha Christie

Other:
American Gods
The Forgotten Garden
Outlander series
Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde

GERMAN
Anything by Ursula Poznanski
Gem Trilogy and Dream (Silver) Trilogy by Kerstin Gier
Es war einmal Aleppo

My most memorable of 2017:
Edgar and Lucy
White Tears
Augustown
Pachinko
The Animators
Bird Box

I read a little bit of everything. So here are my recs:

Non-Fiction:
Sh*t My Dad Says
I Suck at Girls
Bossypants
The Monster of Florence

YA:
The Hunger Games(sci-fi, dystopia)
The Fault in Our Stars
Unwind(sci-fi, dystopia)
Ready Player One(sci-fi, dystopia)
The False Prince(fantasy)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Great American Whatever(lgbtq)
One of Us Is Lying

General Fiction:
The Help
And the Mountains Echoed
Still Alice
Invisible Monsters
The Man Who Loved Clowns
A Man Called Ove

Classics:
Gone with the Wind
Anne of Green Gables
The Secret Garden
Pride and Prejudice
Of Mice and Men

Horror:
Horns
Geek Love
This Book Is Full of Spiders

Mystery/Thriller/Crime:
Deal Breaker
Dark Places
Bull Mountain
Into the Darkest Corner
You
The Good Daughter

Historical Fiction:
The Storyteller
The Book Thief
Child 44
The Child Thief
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Fantasy/Sci-fi:
The Rook
The Way of Kings
The Martian
Nice Dragons Finish Last
Storm Front
Ruby Red

Contemporary Romance:
Tangled
Archer's Voice
The Deal
The Silver Linings Playbook
The Hating Game
Rule

Historical Romance:
The Raven Prince
Yours Until Dawn
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake
Never Seduce a Scot
The Highwayman

Paranormal Romance:
Halfway to the Grave
The Warlord Wants Forever
Fury

LGBTQ Romance:
Hell & High Water(paranormal)
Carry the Ocean
Widdershins(historical, fantasy, horror)
The Lightning-Struck Heart(fantasy)
Strong Signal
Hexbreaker(fantasy, paranormal)

I highly recommend:
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World

and the Pip and Flinx series by Alan Dean Foster if you like Sci-Fi/Fantasy.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Hate U Give
The Female of the Species
The Summer We Got Free
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Sula
Akata Witch
Akata Warrior
We Should All Be Feminists
Asking For It

Use this list, if you need strong female protoganists and/or women of color

I recommend
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen

Home going - Yaa Gyasi
Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead
Clockwork Trilogy - Cassandra Clare
Magpie murder - Anthony Horowitz

The Troop and Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh
The Dry by Jane Harper
Sacrifice & Awakening & Blood Harvest by Sharon Bolton
Down River & King of Lies by John Hart
The Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny
The Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French
Rizzoli and Isles series by Tess Gerritsen
Discovery of Witches trilogy by Deborah Harkness
Felix Castor series starting with The Devil You Know by Mike Carey
The Passage trilogy by Justin Cronin

Jennifer wrote: "The Troop and Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh
The Dry by Ja..."

I have read and highly recommend The Inspector Gamache Series, and The Discovery of Witches Trilogy. I have also read The Passage and The Lost City of Z. I have Bird Box and The Dry on my 2018 challenge list. Thanks for your recommendations.

Fiction:
Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins
Marlena
We Were Liars
The Tiger's Wife
Vampires in the Lemon Grove

Nonfiction:
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
We Should All Be Feminists
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
The Glass Castle

I'm going to recommend a few books that I've read that I've really, really enjoyed and have affected me in a profound way:
What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman (HF)
Night Road by Kristin Hannah (Fiction)
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain (Fiction)
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman (HF)
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter (Thriller)

Some of my favorite reads from this year:

Six of Crows
You Know Me Well
Scrappy Little Nobody
Soulless
Fangirl
Americanah
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
A Million Junes
Little & Lion
This is How It Always Is
Moranifesto
All the Light We Cannot See
The Rules of Magic (way better than Practical Magic IMO)
Anything by Celeste Ng
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue
The Heart's Invisible Furies

Shelly wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "The Troop and Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
The Blinds by Adam Sternbe..."



You are welcome! I hope you like Bird Box and The Dry as much as I did.

If you love dogs please read Dogtripping: 25 Rescues, 11 Volunteers, And 3 RVs On Our Canine Cross-Country Adventure!

Thank you to everyone who recommended Meddling Kids! I really wanted to read that one, and was having a hard time finding a prompt to fit it into.

My recommendations:
Mercy
The Hating Game
History Is All You Left Me
This Savage Song
The Help
And the Trees Crept In
Wrecked
Goodnight Tweetheart
The Forgetting Time
Strong Female Protagonist. Book One
Enter Title Here
Defending Jacob
Seconds

Sharing my favorite or most memorable 5-star books from 2017:

The Book of Unknown Americans
El Deafo
A Man Called Ove
I Let You Go
The Dry
Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
A Head Full of Ghosts

These two were hard to read, but 100% worth it:
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
The Female of the Species

Im only like a third through it but The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America's Enemies

YA:

The Wrath and the Dawn
An Ember in the Ashes
Three Dark Crowns
Roar
The Thief


UF:
Magic Bites
Burn for Me
Darkfever

Romance
Wrecked
Full Tilt

The Language of Flowers
The Nightingale
A Walk in the Woods
The Snow Child
Eligible
Small Great Things

I'll recommend 5 of my faves from past challenges :)

Kindred
Girl at War
The Complete Persepolis
No Matter the Wreckage
The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I recommend these books, which have been the most memorable and/or life-changing for me (and others):

Fiction:
The Shadow of the Wind
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Japanese Lover
The Natural Way of Things

Nonfiction:
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

It's the end of the year now so I can make my recommendations from my 2017 reading (drum roll, please!):

Favorite five star reads in 2017 that are really six stars or more:
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
March (all three volumes)
The Bear and the Nightingale
Homegoing
Running
Euphoria
Jesus' Son
Strange the Dreamer
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
News of the World
The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line (audiobook!)
The Hate U Give
The Last Place You Look
The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors (a picture book)
The Long Goodbye
You
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
She Rides Shotgun
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Of that list, my 2017 Top Five (in order):
1. She Rides Shotgun
2. You
3. The Last Place You Look
4. Jesus' Son
5. Homegoing

And other all-time favorite reads:
Faithful Place
Crow Lake
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Cosmos
Half of a Yellow Sun
Station Eleven
Daughter of Smoke & Bone (the whole series)
Aftertime
The Poisonwood Bible
The Shadow of the Torturer (the whole series)
Wuthering Heights

My favorites I read in 2017: (lots of YA and MG, but not only that)
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic
The War that Saved My Life
Refugee
Orbiting Jupiter
Americanah
Lily and Dunkin
Ramona Blue
The Upside of Unrequited
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Some Writer!: The Story of E. B. White
Three Dark Crowns
Digger, Volume One
Long Way Down
The Female of the Species
Not a Drop to Drink
Flying Lessons and Other Stories
Goodbye Days
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Book Thief
The Shadow of the Wind
The Outsiders
The Hate U Give
The Night Circus
Neverwhere
March: Book One (and books 2 and 3)
The Underground Railroad
The Nightingale
Brown Girl Dreaming
Salt to the Sea
Red Queen
Outlander

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Handmaid's Tale (Special Audible Edition)

The Secrets of the Notebook: A Woman's Quest to Uncover Her Royal Family Secret

Had never heard of it, but it sounds fabulous!!

I just have a few (and I want to say thanks for all the recs since I don't know anyone else doing the challenge!)

All the Light We Cannot See

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Slade House

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Good Luck everyone!

Here are my recommendations:
Fantasy Series
A Game of Thrones
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Hobbit

Time Travel
Outlander

Historical Fiction
Persuasion
The Secret Diary of a Princess
The Lady of the Rivers
Gone with the Wind

Non fiction/Relationships
Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment
He's Just Not That Into You: The No Excuses Truth To Understanding Guys
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul

History/Non fiction
World War One: History In An Hour
Story of the Wreck of the Titanic

Fiction
The Great Gatsby

I have a couple of recommendations.
Memoir: Unbroken
YA: Challenger Deep

Not Just Passing Through M/M Romance
The Ordinary Princess children's fairy tale, quick read
The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic fantasy, 1st books in the Discworld series (these 2 go together, more so than the rest of the books)

Wyrd Sisters fantasy/satire - Discworld take on Macbeth
The Giver
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The Cyberiad

My favorite books I read within the last year that I haven't seen listed yet;
My Best Friend's Exorcism
The Changeling
In Other Lands
Strange the Dreamer

The Haunted

Magyk
The Final Empire
The Lord of the Rings

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
The Real Happy Pill: How to Train Your Brain to Create Happiness and a Longer Life

The Miniaturist

Just some of my favourite books.

*Good Night, Mr. Tom
*Rebecca
*The Boys from Brazil
*The Book Thief
*London Belongs to Me
*Educating Rita
*David Copperfield

The Night Circus!!!!!

I have one book that I would recommend to literally anyone: Uprooted by Naomi Novik.
For non-fiction/memoir, I loved Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah.

These are my top favorites from 2017 that I recommend (but they don't all fit into other categories):

About a problem facing society today:
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
The Hate U Give
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Small Great Things
The Enchanted (I can't say that I liked this book. It was one of the hardest books I've ever read, but it was based on the author's real experience and went hand in hand with Just Mercy. It might work for a book based on a real person as well, since it is based on the author's own experiences.)

A book with a weather element in the title:
The Name of the Wind (fantasy)

A book about time travel:
Kindred
11/22/63

An allegory:
Life of Pi

Books that don't fit into other cateogies:
The Shipping News (a modern classic)
Dark Matter (a suspenseful sci fi thriller)
Replay (what if you could live your life over?)
A Man Called Ove (literary fiction)
Thirst: Poems (a book of poetry)