On The Nightstand (Adult):
Seriously, the stack is this high. Maybe yours is higher.
- Sea Wife, Amity Gaige (just finished reading and highly recommend)
- Surfacing, Kathleen Jamie (can already highly recommend)
- The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel
- Change Your Brain, Change Your Grades, Daniel G. Amen (I have a kid)
- The Library Book, Susan Orlean
- Untamed, Glennon Doyle
- The Wonder of Boys, Michael Gurion (I have a boy)
- This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
- The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson (any nightstand’s ultimate staple)
- Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (will never leave the nightstand)
- Building Your Child’s Self-Esteem, Dorothy Corkille Briggs (stays on nightstand!)
- The Ocean World, Jacques Cousteau (will be reading in perpetuity)
On The Nightstand (Children’s/YA–see also “…filed children’s/YA” below)
- The Pendragon series (we are embarking on this series for Family Book Club)
- The Mermaid and the Bear, Ailish Sinclair
- Forever, Rick Riordan
- The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
- The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert
- The Jamie Drake Equation, Christopher Edge
- The Language Of Spells, Garret Weyr
- The Midnight War Of Mateo Martinez, Robin Yardi
- A Diamond in the Desert, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (MUST-READ–will stay on nightstand for inspiration)
- Destiny, Rewritten, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (exquisite–will also keep on nightstand for inspiration)
Read And Filed To The Livingroom Bookshelves–Or Not… (Adult):
- Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens
- Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
- We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (you can’t not read this)
- All the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister (you can’t not read this)
- The Snow Child and To The Bright Edge Of The World, Eowyn Ivey
- How To Party With An Infant, and The Descendants and House Of Thieves, Kaui Hart Hemmings
- All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (I’ve been keeping up with his work since The Shell Collector)
- Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, Maria Semple (instant favorite)
- The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (genius)
- All of Louise Penny’s Gamache/3 Pines novels
- The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson (I survived)
- The Goldfinch, Donna Tart (gah! but will keep)
- The Signature Of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert (gah! but will keep)
- The Descendants, Kaui Hart Hemmings (so much more rewarding than the film–and I loved the film)
- The Tiger’s Wife, Tea Obrecht
- Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
- The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (will always be a re-read and a favorite–movie was charming, but nothing beats the book)
- A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson (bildungsroman on speeeeeeed!)
- Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin (lived in Oxford when I was a child—perception of Lewis Carroll now changed forever…gah!)
- All Ngaio Marsh
Read/Filed/Already On Living Room Bookshelves (Children’s/YA):
- Every Rebecca Stead book
- The Secret Commonwealth (see below)
- Dust, by He Who Should Always Be Named
- The Girl Who Drank The Moon, Kelly Barnhill
- Inkheart, and everything else by Cornelia Funke
- The Wild Robot and The Wild Robot Escapes, Peter Brown
- The One And Only Ivan, K.A. Applegate (I wish K.A. was my friend)
- All of Jeanne Birdsall’s books
- Doll Bones, Holly Black (those crazy boat-stealing kids!)
- Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech (QUEEN Sharon)
- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly
- The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart
- All Ransom Riggs
- Goblin Secrets, William Alexander
- The Year the Swallows Came Early, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (5 gold stars)
- Veronica Rossi’s trilogy
- The Fires Beneath the Sea, Lydia Millet (another YA author writing middle grade–or is it the other way around?)
- All Zilpha Keatley Snyder, ALL
- The City Of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau
- Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a character passing out so many times in one novel)
- The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson
- The Giver, Lois Lowry
- The Cuckoo Tree, Joan Aiken
- The Tail Of Emily Windsnap, Liz Kessler
- A Wind In The Door, Madeleine L’Engle (have you read it again, too?)
Poetry:
- RIP Mary Oliver. You helped.
- Life on Mars, Tracy K. Smith
- Blud, Rachel McKibbens
- The Traps, Louise Mathias
- The Glimmering Room, Cynthia Cruz
- Stag’s Leap, Sharon Olds
- Randall Jarrell, The Woman At The Washington Zoo
- Above All Else, The Trembling Resembles A Forest, Louise Mathias (look–if you love poetry, you must read Louise’s chapbook and all her books–case closed)
- Black Hope, Marsha de la O
- Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, Dianne Seuss (title poem a mindblower)
- The Sleep Hotel, Amy Newlove Schroeder (a luminous debut)
- Dearest Creature, Amy Gerstler (I hope I meet her some day)
- Glass Town, Lisa Russ Spaar (I always return to it)
- Always returning to Sarah Hannah’s books. They haunt me.
Music
- Tame Impala
- Bent
- Neko Case
- Iron & Wine
- Adele
- Florence And The Machine
- Patty Griffin
- Indigo Girls (follow on Facebook)
- Bjork
- Cheryl Crow
- Courtyard Hounds (they make me cry—but then, I cry at Curious George…)
- Elbow
- Fleet Foxes
- Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs
- Jesca Hoop
- Cold War Kids
I love this page! It’s great to learn what others have read/are reading.
Personally, I find my home is incomplete without an easily accessible shelf of Jane Austen.
Chris–Jane Austen lives here, too. Both in book and DVD format…
Nice! 🙂