This is completely outside of my normal reading genres, but I picked up a book my wife had just finished a couple of nights ago. “Uprooted” by Naomi Novik. It is about witches and dragons, but not the kinds of witches and dragons you might usually imagine. Totally not my kind of book, and I am completely drawn into it.
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I love those books! Hoff did an exceptional job of explaining Taoism using Winnie the Pooh. And the stories are funny, too!
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Anybody who likes fairy tales, fairy tale retellings, or just good middle grade fiction might enjoy Chris Colfer’s The Land of Stories set. It’s six books. I’m 100 pages into the last one and have loved them all so far.
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A-ha . . . I remember when having that Little Red Book in your back pocket or knapsack was part of a secret code on campus. Pure delight and the folks “in the know” were instant friends and allies, as well.
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I love “Uprooted”! I just read it and immediately read “A Deadly Education”. It is about a magic school, but it’s nothing like the way anyone else has written about a magic school. It’s also very funny.
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Just read her first page. Now, that’s a hook!
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If you like fiction you can hear as you read it, check out Obert Skye’s MG fantasy Beyond Foo. Loved it. Got to read the second one now, Geth and the Return of the Lithens.
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I Love everybody and other atrocious lies .
By Laurie Notaro.
You will be truly laughing out load throughout the entire book. Since the tale is based on her real life of trying to publish her book, would be fun for the group.
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Just finished Melisa De la Cruz’s MG fantasy Never After: The Thirteenth Fairy. I’ve never read something done in third person present before, but this was excellent.
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I’d go with just about any book from the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan or the DragonBack series by Timothy Zahn. Both are YA fiction and quick, but very enjoyable reads if you’re in to fantasy and sci-fi.
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I started the Ranger’s Apprentice series awhile back. I really need to go back and continue with it.
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So many fantasy suggestions in the list already. Good company.
So I’ll go against the flow and pitch for The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66878.The_Little_World_of_Don_Camillo)
or any in the series. Some good translations around really capture the heart and soul of them.
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An excellent series and I still find them just as engaging as the first time I read them.
There are a couple of expanded world stories now apart from the original line up. Brother Band Chronicles is about the Skandians who are introduced early on in Rangers Apprentice while The Early Years and The Royal Ranger (pretty sure about that title) are a prequel and sequel spin off to the main RA series respectively.
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From 1992, Sue Townsend’s THE QUEEN AND I*, seems old … but with ‘Megzit’ and sparks flying now with the Sussexes Netflix reality show out soon, an Oprah interview airing in early March, and ‘the Palace’ forced into trying to do something—it’s just hilarity all over again.
- The Royals are forced to move out of Buckingham Palace to a council estate. A shell suit (shiny polyester sweat pants and zipped top) aren’t a good look for Prince Charles …
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Picked up Daniel Wallace’s Extra-ordinary Adventures during the most recent ice-age so I wouldn’t have to rely on my phone/etc. It’s a bit of a “writer’s book”, but delightfully written.
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It’s been a while since I read this book—and I don’t know quite why I remember it so many years later.
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Spot on dialect for any of you trying to write Southern…
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I have begun reading The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr House, no not an autobiography)
This is one of the wittiest fiction novels I have ever read. I am crying laughing through out the good guys verses the bad. Evil billionaires, femme fatales, wannabe terrorists and rouge CIA agents, this book has it all.
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OOoh! I like that zany Hugh Laurie has written a novel. I’ll try to find it!
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One book that I recommend to everyone is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It is a non-fiction book written with beautifully poetic prose, doling out heartbreaking and inspiring information. Absolutely fantastic.