Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

I was going to read The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for the "based on a real person" prompt until someone pointed out that it was more of a memoir. But I've seen it mentioned a few times over the past two challenges, so I'm using it for this prompt instead.

A few of my favourites:
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff - bratty American girl is sent to stay with her eccentric English cousins over the summer, war breaks out and they have to fend for themselves

Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens - 1930s girls' boarding school murder mystery, think Enid Blyton meets Agatha Christie

Girl Reading by Katie Ward - short stories imagining the lives of women in historical portraits

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - compelling and beautiful coming-of-age story about a girl beginning to question her father's authority, against the backdrop of a military coup

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge - gothic horror with a heavy dose of feminism, about a girl whose father discovers a tree that bears a truth-revealing fruit

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill - challenging dystopian YA about a world where girls are judged solely on their appearance, and are groomed to become either wives or concubines to wealthy men

And if you prefer non-fiction:
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge - timely and highly readable examination of structural racism in the UK

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky - hands down the most inspiring and wonderful book I have ever read!

And Then There Were None
Lord of the Rings
The Edge or Proof by Dick Francis
Animal Farm
The Phantom Tollbooth
Disney After Dark
The Devil in the White City

Madison wrote: "The Problem with Forever
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Warcross
Fruits Basket, Vol. 1
Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 1
..."

Madison - I think I'm going to read Fruits Basket, Vol 1. on your recommendation! It's very popular with my students so I want to see what the fuss is all about :)

Fantasy:

Rosemary and Rue
Hawksong
Howl's Moving Castle
Resenting the Hero

Romance:
The Hating Game
She Went All the Way
Size 12 Is Not Fat
Tigers and Devils

YA:
The Summer of Chasing Mermaids
Shadowland
Pivot Point

Horror:
Feed
Parasite

I'd like to recommend my first 5-star book of the year: Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance

Mostly literary fiction with a few others thrown in:

Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The Signature of All Things
Everywhere I Look
Hag-Seed
Blackbird House
Dance Dance Dance
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
How to Be Both
Hot Milk
Heartburn

Some recent reads I haven't seen on this list yet:
Infomocracy
Into the Drowning Deep
Shades of Milk and Honey
Jade City
Sorcerer to the Crown

For those of you who like listening to audiobooks, today Audible is offering Catch Me If You Can as their daily deal for only $2.95. I not only recommend this book but if you need a good backup multi-prompt book for your list this one is great because it also fills all of these prompts:

A book made into a movie you've already seen
A novel based on a real person
A book with song lyrics in the title (Walking on Cars: Catch me if you can)
A book about a villain or anti hero
A book involving a heist
A book that is also a stage play or musical
True Crime

Shelley wrote: "Mostly literary fiction with a few others thrown in:

Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The Signature of All Things
Everywhere I Look
Hag-Seed...

Thanks! I had Do Not Say We Have Nothing as my book I meant to read in 2017, but I have a few others that I also wanted to use there.

I would highly suggest the following books which are all over the place as far as their subject matter.

Jumbo: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World - clearly about an elephant

The Lovely Bones - told from the perspective of a murdered child watching her family cope

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street - the life of an immigrant spent in the ice cream industry - fiction

Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul - for all of the Starbucks / coffee lovers - I found it to be extremely interesting to hear about the business aspect of the chain and why they made some decisions they made

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend - different perspective as it's told from the view point of the imaginary friend (or at least that's what I remember but it's been awhile)

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed - intriguing case made for one of the suspects

Thirteen Reasons Why - although emotional, I liked the way the story is told - be warned it is about a teen suicide

Five Days in November - I felt like I was sitting in a room with my grandfather retelling a story - interesting - the kennedy assassination

Half a Life: A Memoir - about a boy that accidentally kills a classmate and how he copes with life after the fact

The Blood of Flowers - set in Persia and about rug making and the colors. - I found it interesting and if I remember correctly I loved the descriptions of the colors and how they were made. - be warned there is sexual content in the book

Dancing on My Grave - I loved this memoir of the ballet world. gelsey kirkland and mikhail barishnakov fans will enjoy it although it is quite tragic what they put themselves through to become a prima ballerina

The Secret Lives of Dresses - a nice fiction read

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived - another great book about an elephant

Clara and Mr. Tiffany - about a girl working for tiffany's. - fiction - the stained glass color descriptions are fabulous

Rosamund Lupton - love this author - she keeps you guessing until the end - so far I have read Afterwards and Sister

White Lotus - this book has been out of print for a very long time but I highly suggest it if you can get your hands on a copy. it is about the chinese coming to america and taking the white people back as slaves. It follows the story of one little girl and what she goes through. I read this in the 8th grade and it has stayed with me all these years. it just goes to show slavery could have happened to any culture at any time.

Memoirs of a Geisha - loved this because I have never read anything about this culture

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else - one man's journey from the top to the bottom and climbing back up.

Wildflower - I loved this - I could relate to so many of her stories, of course not in a hollywood way but she really is a down to earth regular person.

Diane wrote: "I would highly suggest the following books which are all over the place as far as their subject matter.

Jumbo: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World - cle..."

I read Modoc either last year or the year before. Got curious about the story and googled it. From what I can glean it's not a true story. He made it up

Fran wrote: "Diane wrote: "I would highly suggest the following books which are all over the place as far as their subject matter.

[book:Jumbo: This Being the True Story of the Greatest Elephant in the World|..."

I have seen the book shelved as biography, non-fiction, and animal on Goodreads. I personally found it in the animal section of the bookstore and it claims animal as the genre on the book. The Library of Congress lists it as circus animal. I don't know if these listings make it fiction or not but I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

The October List by Jeffrey Deaver - this story is told in reverse order, it's very clever :)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Memory of Midnight by Pamela Hartshorne
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

enjoy! :)

Fun! I recommend the following:

Fiction:
My Absolute Darling
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Ruby
East of Eden
Valentina by S.E. Lynnes
Belinda by Anne Rice
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Call Me by Your Name
Heartburn
The Enchanted
The Collector
You

YA
When Dimple Met Rishi
The Serpent King
Done Dirt Cheap
Mosquitoland

Non-fiction
Breaking Free: How I Escaped My Father-Warren Jeffs-Polygamy, and the FLDS Cult
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties
Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed
Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles
The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith

I have a question for those that have read both The Rules of Magic and Practical Magic, and I wasn't sure where else to put it. Should they be read in a specific order? Can I read Rules of Magic first?

Some more that I haven't seen mentioned. It's great to have so much to choose from!

The Fifth Season
On the Beach
The Day of the Triffids
The Machine
The Tidal Zone
Circe
A Closed and Common Orbit
Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged
Our Endless Numbered Days
13 Minutes
Moonrise
The Arrival of Missives

Non-fiction:
Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
You Will Not Have My Hate
The Last Act Of Love
The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch
Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft - 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus
Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?: A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain

My favorites:

Dune (all of them)
The Blind Assassin
Atlas Shrugged
Tropic of Cancer
A Discovery of Witches (all three)
The Passage
The Calling
Outlander (all of them)

I think I'm going to read Station Eleven for this one! Saw it on here a few times and a friend has been raving about it lately.

A few of my recommendations are:
Before the Fall
Borne
Sourdough
Mr. Splitfoot
My Brilliant Friend
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
In the Unlikely Event

Devon wrote: "Shelley wrote: "Mostly literary fiction with a few others thrown in:

Do Not Say We Have Nothing
The Signature of All Things
Everywhere I Look
[book:..."
It's stunning - I hope you love it.

Doing my bit for the "Recommended by someone else doing the Pop Sugar Challenge" prompt.

Here are a few of my 5-star reads:

Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden
Small Great Things by Jodi Piccoult
From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple
The Dry by Jane Harper
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Enjoy!

Kym wrote: "Doing my bit for the "Recommended by someone else doing the Pop Sugar Challenge" prompt.

Here are a few of my 5-star reads:

Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden
Small Great Things by Jodi Piccoult..."

Do you think The Dry could cover the book about death prompt?

Thanks. I'll check out Wolf of the Plains.

Reenah wrote: "My recommendations:

1. The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud:
The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, Ptolemy's Gate

I'd call it Urban..."
Thank you SO MUCH for the recommendation of the Peter Grant series. I read it years ago, and loved it, but forgot the name of the author, main character, and book titles. It's been on my mental list of "books I want to reread, and also read the next book(s) in the series" but I didn't know how to locate it again and I'd sort of forgotten about it.

Now I can read it as part of this challenge- but I think I'll wait until I'm closer to being done with the other prompts so I can take a break and read the whole series.

Sci-fi/fantasy
Stardust
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Children of Time
The Princess Bride
A Court of Thorns and Roses
The Color of Magic
Jurassic Park

Young adult
Strange the Dreamer
The Sun Is Also a Star
The Raven Boys
All Rights Reserved
Uprooted

Non-fiction
The Genius of Birds
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation
Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World
Moosewood Restaurant Favorites: The 250 Most-Requested, Naturally Delicious Recipes from One of America's Best-Loved Restaurants

Red Sister
The Scorpio Races
Heartsick
Red Rising
Omens
Three Dark Crowns
All the Bright Places
Agnes and the Hitman (Funny!)

More recommendations from moi:
Little Fires Everywhere
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It
Places No One Knows
The Nowhere Girls
Vicious
The Broken Girls
Affinity

Cornerofmadness wrote: "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..."

Thanks for Eve Dallas series recommendation! I completed this series last year and I still have some book unread so this prompt is clear for me :-)

I wish someone had recommended these because they are so good!
The Alice Network
Lab Girl

A book i have enjoyed this year so far is Ready Player One especially if you were born or grew up in the 80's.

I finished The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for this prompt. It was a quick read, but I enjoyed it. It's extraordinary how he was able to tell the story in the first place, but that he was able to still let his voice come through in his words was really special. I didn't feel it was a chance for him to wallow in self-pity (though god knows no one could blame him if he had) or to martyr himself. It was well balanced between being insightful about living with locked-in syndrome and also giving glimpses of who he had been before his stroke. Terrifying and heartbreaking, but at times funny and touching.

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended!

Thanks Megan, that may be mine. Unless it wins the poll and I read it for the play/musical category.

Best books I've read so far this year:
Lost Horizon
Alice in Wonderland
Witness for the Prosecution and Three Blind Mice (Agatha Christie)
A Week in Winter, Chestnut Street ( Maeve Binchy)
The Pursuit (Janet Evanovich)

I'd recommend:

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Bastard Out of Carolina
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
My Friend Dahmer
An American Marriage
The Glass CastleEleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Victoria wrote: "A book i have enjoyed this year so far is Ready Player One especially if you were born or grew up in the 80's."

This is one of my all time favorites! Can't wait to see the move.

I was really wanting to read Before We Were Yours so was really pleased when I saw somebody somewhere over her recommend it,

Michelle wrote: "Some favorites:

Fiction:
by Murakami: 1Q84 , Norwegian Wood , The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , [book:Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage|192..."

I was searching for Murakami's 1Q84. Thank you!

Finnish literature:

The Core of the Sun
Oneiron
Memory of Water
They Know Not What They Do
Lithium-6
Red Moon over White Sea

I'll also recommend The Beautiful Ones, since this book doesn't really seem to be getting a lot of attention.

Siobhan wrote: "I'll also recommend The Beautiful Ones, since this book doesn't really seem to be getting a lot of attention."

Thank you for recommending this! I just read it and I adored it ❤️

I just finished reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in basically one sitting (save for the first 40 pages before I had to run an errand today) and was absolutely dumbstruck by it. It's an incredible YA book that definitely fits into a couple different challenge categories and is well worth the read. I HIGHLY recommend it.

These are my all time fave stand alone books:

The Outsiders
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Book Thief
Eleanor & Park
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour
Ugly Love
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Trouble
Looking for Alaska
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
History Is All You Left Me

There were two books I've read recently that have changed me as a reader. Those books are:
The Storyteller
White Oleander

oh no I'd like to add "The inexplicable logic of my Life."

Just a couple of recommendations from me in case anyone needs another option LOL!
Ride the Wind
Anything by Kristan Higgins
The Last Song

Literary Fiction
The Almost Sisters
The Immortalists
Halsey Street

Mystery
Magpie Murders

Suspense/ Thriller
Since We Fell
The Child Finder

Romance
The Wedding Date

I just picked up The Wedding Date, though I really didn’t need a new book :). Now I have a prompt to fit it in... Thanks

Lindi wrote: "Considering everyone's great recommendations, this one will be an easy freebie :)


The Hating Game - GREAT chick-lit
Gone with the Wind
[book:The Cuckoo's Calling|1616..."

Can you or anyone recommend After You?!