Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Here are a few that are a bit more... off the beaten path

Geek Love

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

The Worthing Saga

Never Let Me Go

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

Emma wrote: "Here are a few that are a bit more... off the beaten path

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

.."


I second Pastwatch!

Mike wrote: "Emma wrote: "Here are a few that are a bit more... off the beaten path

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

.."


I second Pastwatch!"

-It is such an underrated book! Seriously one of my all time favorites, I go back and reread it every couple years

I thought I'd recommend my favorites for the first three months of this year

The Curious Affair of the Witch at Wayside Cross by Lisa Tuttle

Where the Dead Lie by C.S. Harris

The Grave's a Fine and Private Placeby Alan Bradley (all three are Historical mystery)

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 by Emil Ferris a graphic novel, a truly outstanding one, I read it for set in the decade I was born (1960s)

Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters by Angel Martinez (urban fantasy, LGBT)

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch (urban fantasy, literally my favorite book all year)

The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud (urban fantasy, YA)

So far my 4 & 5 star books this year are:

*The Hate U Give
*The Handmaid's Tale
*The Invention of Hugo Cabret
*The Girl With All the Gifts
*Binti
*Red Sparrow
*Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
*The Cuckoo's Calling
*Sleeping Beauties

North and South

I just finished this book yesterday and added it to my list of classics I think everyone should read.

i suggest:
Before We Were Strangers
The Hate U Give
Attachments
The Hating Game
Flight Season
Starry Eyes

Thank you Tania! Your recommendation allowed me to read The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis. I was a little disappointed in this installment. Thinking about that, there isn't anything I can pinpoint - it just didn't appeal to me quite like the first two. I still plan on reading the rest of the series.

I can recommend:

Fiction: General
White Chrysanthemums by Mary Lynn Bracht (historical)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (also historical)

Fiction: Fantasy
The Darker Shade of Magic series (all three) by V.E. Schwab
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
The Divine Cities trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
Borderline by Mishell Baker
The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Saga series by Brian K. Vaughan (graphic novels)

Fiction: Sci/Fi
The Imperial Radch (or Ancillary) trilogy by Ann Leckie
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Fiction: Mystery
Sebastian St. Cyr series by C.S. Harris (historical mystery)
The Haunting of Maddie Clare by Simone St. James
The Heist by Janet Evanovich - fun! more of a heist (obvi) than a mystery
The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

Fiction: Romance
The Maiden Lane series by Elizabeth Hoyt
Radiance by Grace Draven (fantasy romance)
The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley
The Hook Up by Kristen Callihan

Fiction: YA
The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
American Street by Ibi Zoboi
My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
The Diviners by Libba Bray

Nonfiction
The Photo Ark by Joel Satore
Rat Island by William Stolzenburg
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
From Here to Eternity - Traveling the World to find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Susie's Senior Dogs by Erin O'Sullivan
Very Good Lives by J.K. Rowling
The Complete Book of Home Organization by Toni Hammersley (I have bought this for five people now)
Trinity - a Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
The Lost Dogs - Michael Vick's Dogs and Their Tale of Rescue and Redemption by Jim Gorant

Some of my recent favourites:
Come Let Us Sing Anyway by Leone Ross
The Tent, the Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy
Sum by David Eagleman
The Muse by Jessie Burton
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
The Spice Box Letters by Eve Makis
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Guilty Feminist by Deborah Frances-White
11.22.63 by Stephen King
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Here are my favorite books from the 2018 challenge so far:

Natural Disaster: I Cover Them. I am One.

Y: The Last Man, Vol. 3: One Small Step

Saga, Vol. 8

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

The Parrot's Lament, and Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity

Dog Loves Books

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Battle Angel Alita Deluxe Edition 1

Tikki Tikki Tembo

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) AmericaAll Rights Reserved

Nowhere Near First: Ultramarathon Adventures From The Back Of The Pack

Census

The Story of My Teeth

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

That Was Then, This Is Now

Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah

Ghost Boys

I just read an amazing!!! book. My Friend by Sigrid Nunez, a book about love, about a dog about writing itself and writers and the structure is wonderful an surprising. Very short. I read it in a two hours and now I'm going to reread, I loved it.

Jane wrote: "I just read an amazing!!! book. My Friend by Sigrid Nunez, a book about love, about a dog about writing itself and writers and the structure is wonderful an surprising. Very short. I read it in a t..."

I loved this one too! It was the first book I read this year and I'd be shocked if it doesn't end up being my book of the year.

If you look on Goodreads reviews, most people either hate and or love My Friend. One librarian gave it one star and said she would ban it from her library, it was so disgusting. I found it brilliant. Not morally pious, but gritty and realistic and also filled with love of all kinds.

Some recommendations from books I’ve read so far this year and a few favorites of all time! I tried to list books not already mentioned.
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson
In The Lake of The Woods by Tim O’Brien
Villa America by Liza Klaussmann
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and The Heart of The Middle East by Sandy Toman

Best,
Ami

Here are my recommendations from my April and May reading

Unspeakable Words by Sarah Madison
Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber
Hearts of Darkness by Andrea Speed
Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
Skythane by J. Scott Coatsworth

Books I've read for the challenge so far this year that I recommend!

The Martian
Wenjack
The Marrow Thieves
The Handmaid's Tale
Kindred
March
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Birth of the Firebringer
Bridget Jones's Diary

Some amazing options that I recommend:
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The House of the Spirits
Love in the Time of Cholera
A Máquina de Fazer Espanhóis
Circe
The Black Widow
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

I just finished The Outsider by Stephen King. I highly highly recommend it!!!!

I can recommend All the Light We Cannot See
The Outsiders

Both of these are my favorite reads of this year!

Forgot to add Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
and In Cold Blood

Has anyone read What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons that would recommend it?

I just finished The Bees by Laline Paull and recommend it!

Here are some I've enjoyed so far this year:
The Girl in the Well Is Me (middle grade fiction)
Kaptara, Vol. 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien (graphic novel, science fiction)
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (non-fiction)
Undead Girl Gang (Young Adult, urban fantasy/horror)
Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong (non-fiction)
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (graphic novel, non-fiction/literary criticism)
Giant Days, Vol. 1 (graphic novel, fiction)
Preludes & Nocturnes (graphic novel, fantasy/horror)
Into the Drowning Deep (science fiction/horror)
Six of Crows (young adult fantasy)

I read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet for my book club, which has also been recommend in this group a few times. I loved it. It was so refreshing to have a true "normal people" book where the whole universe wasn't at stake for once.

Can anyone recommend Children of Blood and Bone? I just got it and I REALLY want to read it for the challenge. I've filled all of the other categories where it might fit, but haven't read my book for the recommendation category yet. I'd gladly switch my previous pick in order to fit this in somewhere!

Laura wrote: "Can anyone recommend Children of Blood and Bone? I just got it and I REALLY want to read it for the challenge. I've filled all of the other categories where it might fit, but haven'..."

I do! I read it and really enjoyed -- the buzz it is getting is deserved.

Danielle wrote: "Laura wrote: "Can anyone recommend Children of Blood and Bone? I just got it and I REALLY want to read it for the challenge. I've filled all of the other categories where it might f..."

Thanks so much!

The Secret History
The Goldfinch
Perfume
The Crimson Petal and the White
Under the Skin
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Book of Boy (a children's book, but really charming)
The Song of Achilles
Girl with a Pearl Earring

Here are my 5-stars reads for 2018 so far - hope it helps!

Fiction:
Conclave by Robert Harris
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Thirst by Jo Nesbo
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
The Fix by David Baldacci
Small Great Things by Jodi Piccoult
Wolf Of The Plains by Conn Iggulden

Business:
Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success by Paul Skinner
The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Too Fast to Think: How our 24/7 Hyper-connected Work Culture is Destroying our Creativity by Chris Lewis

O Quarto de Jack;
Alvorada Vermelha;
O Filho Dourado;
A informacionista;
Auto-retrato do Escritor Enquanto Corredor de Fundo;
Húmus;
Hotel Lusitano.

Here's a couple of my 5 star picks so far this year if anyone is looking for one!

Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir (a hilarious hip hop memoir of food and being Asian in America)
The Light Between Oceans(post world war I fiction in Australia)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (delightful space opera, more fun characters than excessive world building-the kind of story that makes your heart warm)
Rebel Queen (the story of the amazing Indian Queen Lakshmi her female army)
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (great LGBTQ YA fiction)
The Jane Austen Project (I used this one for my time travel prompt-it's more about how humans would be affected by time travel than the science mumbo jumbo of it. perfect if you're a Jane Austen lover!)

Erin wrote: "Here are some of my favorites from my 2017 list:

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfield
And the Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan..."

I was hoping I would find a recommendation for Crazy Rich Asians (I just read it and really wanted to fit it in somewhere!)

Some recommendations for others who are looking...

Rich People Problems
China Rich Girlfriend
Beartown
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Small Admissions

Thank you to whoever recommended Sorcerer to the Crown up-thread - I loved it!

The Great Alone is my favorite book this year, so I'll add that one.

I found a recommendation in the thread for I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and read that since its been on my TBR. I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It was a good story, but it just didn't really keep me on the edge of my seat the way I had hoped.

I've started trying to fulfill as many prompts as possible with books relevant to my PhD research, which means works published in England 1789-99, or failing that, eighteenth-century works more broadly. (Yeah, there are a LOT of prompts that are impossible for this, but I've also been pleasantly surprised!)

Can anyone recommend an eighteenth-century book? (Or early nineteenth century, i.e. pre-1830?) I usually read Gothic novels, but am happy to try anything from the period!

Could someone recommend "The Mountain Between us", pretty please? :)

I think a really great book to read is The Mountain Between Us ;-)

( I can recommend this because I have added it to my TBR now that I've looked at it, several of my friends gave it 4 or 5 stars. Yay! Also, it must be read before watching the movie which I just found out from reading reviews is a thing)

Tracy wrote: "I think a really great book to read is The Mountain Between Us ;-)

( I can recommend this because I have added it to my TBR now that I've looked at it, several of my friends gave it..."

Yay! Thank you!! :)

Becky wrote: "Tracy wrote: "I think a really great book to read is The Mountain Between Us ;-)

( I can recommend this because I have added it to my TBR now that I've looked at it, several of my f..."

Enjoy 😊

Lawrence wrote: "I've started trying to fulfill as many prompts as possible with books relevant to my PhD research, which means works published in England 1789-99, or failing that, eighteenth-century works more bro..."

I actually really enjoyed The Mysteries of Udolpho, and I thought An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews was hilarious. YMMV, but I also liked Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure!

Thegirlintheafternoon wrote: "Lawrence wrote: "I've started trying to fulfill as many prompts as possible with books relevant to my PhD research, which means works published in England 1789-99, or failing that, eighteenth-centu..."

Thank you!!! I've never read Fanny Hill, but I've been nebulously aware of it -- I'll give it a try! I'm excited, it's a lot earlier in the 18thC than I usually read. If it doesn't work out, Shamela is at least very short :)
(Udolpho is of course amazing, but I just re-read it last year, and it can be a draining book...)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
A Walk in the Woods
Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution
The Song of Achilles
Soul Music
Anthill
The Notebook
Maskerade
Fascism: A Warning

I haven't read these yet, but they're the only books on my shelves that are from the 1700s, so if you would like to take them as recommendations, I won't call the Reading Police on you.

The History Of Sir Charles Grandison Bart (this was apparently Jane Austen's favorite book)

Evelina and Cecilia are both by Fanny Burney who is said to be something of a precursor to Jane Austen.

I don't think any of them are likely to be gothic, unfortunately.

Tracy wrote: "I think a really great book to read is The Mountain Between Us ;-)

( I can recommend this because I have added it to my TBR now that I've looked at it, several of my friends gave it..."

Ahahahaha, was looking through my kindle library the other night and realized that i actually OWN this.... so many books, who knew? I can't keep track lol

I've read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit. Has anyone read and can recommend the third one - Record of a Spaceborn Few?

Fantasy
Guards! Guards!. I recommend anything by Terry Pratchett but this is a good place to start if you're new to his Discworld series.
The Library of Fates
The Perilous Gard
Uprooted

Fiction
Dietland
Murder on the Red River

Mystery
Black and Blue
Whose Body?

Romance
Abroad
The Heiress Effect
A Fashionable Indulgence

Genre-mixers
After Dark (Murakami. He's his own goddamn genre, and it's amazing. I've seen other people recommending a bunch of his other books that I love but this one I think is amazing and underrated, so I'll just leave this here)
Under Heaven (technically fantasy, but so grounded in history it's basically half historical fiction)
The Diabolical Miss Hyde (fantasy, mystery, romance, homage to B-movies and gothic books)
The Magpie Lord (fantasy, mystery, romance)

Man, if anyone could recommend either Hope Never Dies or An Extraordinary Union I would super appreciate it!

Sure I can recommend Hope Never Dies. It was amusing

I recommend an extraordinary union. I don’t like romance usually but that one I thought was very well written.