books for us
Hi! Midterms have been kicking my butt the past few weeks :( I wanted to get this post up during national book month, but punctuality has never been my strong suit and besides, books should be read in great quantities during all months of the year! I asked a few questions on my Instagram and I was super nervous that no one would respond and I would look like a FOOL, but I got so many responses and I’m so excited to share. If you’re in a reading rut, in need of book suggestions, or you’re just in the mood to peruse, here’s a list of people’s favorite books, books they’re currently reading, and what they want to read next.
P.S.
I included links to the Goodreads page for each book in case you want to read some reviews or get the general summary
The quotes are from people who shared why a specific book is their favorite
I wasn’t sure if I should include names or not because I didn’t ask for people’s permission (com law has clearly been occupying a lot of brain space lately) and sometimes books can be a personal thing, so I decided not to. But I can always add names later if that’s what people would like :)
Favorite books:
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller — “Beautiful love story, mythologically accurate, and war plot line.” “The most beautifully written book I’ve ever read.”
“Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
“A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan
“Stolen Beauty” by Laurie Lico Albanese — “A book about the artist Gustav Klimt.”
“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
“Widow Basquiat: A Love Story” by Jennifer Clement — “It’s part poetry, part memoir, part biography. It’s Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life from such an interesting perspective.”
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab
“The Probability of Miracles” by Wendy Wunder — “Even when times are dark happiness will always find you.”
“Salt to the Sea” by Ruta Sepetys — “It’s simply so good and important and anything by Ruta Sepetys is amazing.”
“It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover — “I read it most recently and I loved it! It got me back into read for fun.”
“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
“The Margot Affair” by Sanaë Lemoine
“The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah
“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney
“The God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy — “Just brilliant and unique storytelling.”
“Conversations with Friends” by Sally Rooney — “Just so raw and relatable.”
“Middlesex” by Jeffrey Eugenides — “It’s complex, tells a story of a few generations, and touches a crucial topic.”
“As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner — “It was unlike anything I’d ever read before and I would think about it literally every day and it changed the way I think.”
“The Doubtful Guest” by Edward Gorey— “It’s cute and nostalgic.”
“The Raven Cycle” (the series) by Maggie Stiefvater — “It’s all about magic and dreams and how they make their ways into our daily lives.”
Current reads:
“The Paper Palace” by Miranda Cowley Heller
“Blood and Honey” (from the “Serpent & Dove” series) by Shelby Mahurin
“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney
“A Moveable Feast” by Ernest Hemingway
“The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics” by Daniel James Brown
“The First Last Kiss” by Ali Harris
“Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” by Anthony Bourdain
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
“All Your Perfects” by Colleen Hoover
“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller
“People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry
“Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell
“Ugly Love” by Colleen Hoover
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
“Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction” by Judith Grisel
“The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena
“Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed
“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera
What we’re reading next:
“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque
“Den of Vipers” by K.A. Knight
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
“The Choice” by Nicholas Sparks
“Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains” by Jon Krakauer
“A Darker Shade of Magic” by V.E. Schwab
“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller
“How to Stop Time” by Matt Haig
“People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry
“It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover
“Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” by Olivia Laing
“The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood
“Beach Read” by Emily Henry
“Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney
“We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart
“Misery” by Stephen King
“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
My picks:
Picking my favorite book is so difficult because I change my mind all the time, but right now my favorite book is “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith. It’s the most wonderful book about growing up and seeing the beauty in the small, the ordinary, and the mundane. I also wanted to include one of my favorite quotes from the book because it’s extra sweet and extra cheesy and reflects how I felt about books when I was a kid.
Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure for when she was tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.
Like I said, very cheesy. But also so sweet! Moving on to the book I’m currently reading: Johnny Cash’s autobiography. I’ve started this book about five times in the past nine months and then I always end up putting it down to read something else, but I’m finally getting into it and have extra motivation to finish it because Johnny Cash is my grandpa’s favorite artist and I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with him :)
As for what I’m going to read next, I’m torn. I’ve wanted to read “Daisy Jones & The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid for forever and I finally bought it the other day, but I’ve also thought about re-reading “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf (another one of my favorite books).
Thank you so so much to anyone who shared their book recommendations with me. I hope that by reading this list you were able to find something that sparked your interest or inspired your next read. Books are so special to me, so if anyone ever wants to chat about a book they’re reading or has a recommendation, PLEASE let me know!
Happy reading,
Hayden