Archive by Category

* highly recommended when reviewed (rated 9 or above)

quirky (but good) books

*All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
2 AM At The Cat's Pajamas by Marie Helene-Bertino
Biloxi by Mary Miller
Dietland by Sarai Walker
*Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump
French Exit by Patrick DeWitt
Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
*Goodbye Vitamin by Rachel Khong
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
*How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Moshin Hamid
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe
Marry, Kiss, Kill by Anne Flette-Giordano
*Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett
Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
*The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman
The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

read and enjoyed before this site-
Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement

sweet stories

A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman
Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette
Anxious People by Frederik Backman
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
*Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny
*Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
*Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Barry
Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
The Storied Life of A.J. Fiery by Gabrielle Zevon
*Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
*Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
Miss Jane by Brad Watson
*No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
*Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
*Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
*The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennesy by Rachel Joyce
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
*The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith
*This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
read and enjoyed before this site-
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart

light- beach books

mysteries

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Dark August by Katie Tallo
The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld
*Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
*Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Marry, Kiss, Kill by Anne Flette-Giordano
*Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
*My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh
So Say theFallen by Stuart Neville
Still Life by Louise Penny
The Antiquarian by Gustavo Faveron Patriau
*The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer
The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton
The Gone Dead by Chantelle Benz
The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
The Kept by James Scott
The Lake House by Kate Morton
*The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins
The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney
The Searcher by Tana French
The Secret Place by Tana French
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
The Trespasser by Tana French
*These Women by Ivy Pochoda
*Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith
What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

read and enjoyed before this site-
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller

suspenseful (perhaps even creepy?)

*Afterland by Lauren Beukes
*American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
Disclaimer by Renee Knight
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Finders Keepers by Stephen King
Girl A by Abigail Dean
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
*My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
*Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Summer House With Swimming Pool by Herman Koch
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
The Animals by Christian Kiefer
The Caretaker by AX Ahmad
*The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld
The Girl on a Train by Paula Dawkins
The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
The Hand That Feeds You by A.J. Rich
The Last Flight by Julie Clark
The Loney by Micahel Andrew Hurley
The Long Drop by Denise Mina
The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz
The Martian by Andy Weir (just suspenseful- not creepy)
The One Man by Andrew Gross
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani
*The Push by Ashley Audrain
*The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
This is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf

read and enjoyed before this site-
Night Film by Marisha Pessl

literary fiction

A Burning by Megha Majumdar
*A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Good Neighbor by Therese Anne Fowler
*A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
*A Place For Us by Fatima Farheer Mirza
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
*A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
*A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
*All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
*And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
*Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
*Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
*Beartown by Frederik Backman
**Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeymii
Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
Circe by Madeline Miller
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His yeats of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
*Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
**Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
Faithful by Alice Hoffman
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Fly Me by Daniel Riley
*Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Girl At War by Sara Novic
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Grief Cottage by Gail Goodwin
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Here I Am by Jonathan Safron Foer
Hold Still by Lynn Steger Strong
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
*Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
*Hum If You Don't Know The Words by Bianca Marais
**Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
If You Want To Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais
Katerina by James Frey
Language Arts by Stephanie Kallos
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
*Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
*Life Among Giants by Bill Roorbach
*Life Drawing by Robin Black
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
**Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Lost Empress by Sergio De La Pava
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
**Memorial by Bryan Washington
**My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
**Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
**Normal People by Sally Rooney
**Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
Olympus Texas by Stacey Swann
*Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin
Ramadan Ramsey by Louis Edwards
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji
*Ruby by Cynthia Bond
*Saints for All Ocassions by J. Courtney Sullivan
Self-Portrait With Boy by Rachel Lyon
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawaii Strong Washburn
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
*Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Sweet bitter by Stephanie Danler
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
The All of It by Jeannette Haien
The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig
The Buried Giant by Kazoo Ishiguro
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
*The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
**The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
The Heart's invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Hearts Of Men by Nickolas Butler
The Immportalists by Chloe Benjamin
The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild
The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach
The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
*The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
*The Map of Salt and Stars bt Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
*The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
The Nix by Nathan Hill
The Optimist's Daughter By Eudora Welty
The Porpoise by Mark Haddon
The Queen of Tuesday by Darin Strauss
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman
*The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Temporary Gentleman by Sebastian Barry
The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung
The Travelers by Regina Porter
*The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
TheTurner House by Angela Flournoy
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinit
The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus
*The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
To Keep the Sun Alive by Rabeah
*Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
*We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
*Writers & Lovers by Lily King
Young God by Katherine Faw Morris

read and enjoyed before the site-
The Enchanted by Rene Denfield
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
Transatlantic by Colum McCann

way, way literary fiction...great writing

*A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
*Apeirogon by Colum McCann
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday
Census by Jesse Ball
*Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
*Driftless by David Rhodes
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
*How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
*Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
Luster by Raven Leilani
Milkman by Anna Burns
On Earth We're Breifly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Open City by Teju Cole
**Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
Sweet bitter by Stephanie Danler
The Animals by Christian Kiefer
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
*The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes
*The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Memoirs

And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O'Connell
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
Crying in the H Mart by Michelle Zauner
*Educated by Tara Westover
Everything Happens for a Reason and other Lies I have Loved by Kate Bower
Fire Shut up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow
Forty Autumns by Nina Willner
Good Apple by Elizabeth Passarella
H is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
*How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott
Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle
My Brother Moochie by Issac J. Bailey
On the Move by Oliver Sacks
Out East by John Glynn
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
*The Last Girl by Nadia Murad
Things We Didn't Talk about When I Was a Girl by Jeannie Vanasco
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur
You're On An Airplane by Parker Posey

read and enjoyed before this site-
Just Kids by Patti Smith
All Over But the Shouting by Rick Bragg

dystopian novels

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
*Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
Ready Player One by Ernest Kline
The Book of M by Peng Shepherd
The Circle by Dave Eggers
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
*Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Power by Naomi Alderman

read and enjoyed before the site-
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

non-fiction

An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz
*Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Brain Food by Lisa Mosconi PhD , INHC
Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami
Furious Hours by Casey Dep
*Ghettoside A True Story of Murder in America by Jill Leovy
*Gut by Giulia Enders
Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
Hollywood's Eve by Lili Anolik
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Madame President by Helene Cooper
Maeve in America by Maeve Higgins
Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich
*One Summer by Bill Bryson
Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf
Red Notice by Bill Browder
Remember by Lisa Genova
Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell
**The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
*The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin
*The Good Spy by Kai Bird
The Lucky Years by David B. Agus M.D.
*The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
*The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
The Splendid Things We Planned by Blake Bailey
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

read and enjoyed before this site-
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

short stories

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hillary Mantel
*The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
*There There by Tommy Orange
read and enjoyed before this site-
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

good but really different/fantasy

*Outlawed by Anna North
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alex E. Harrow

historical fiction

A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie
Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb
Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
*Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Euphoria by Lily King
*Georgia by Dawn Tripp
House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure
Lazaretto by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford
*News of the World by Paulette Jiles
November Road by Lou Berney
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
Orhan's Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Saints For All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Chritsty Lefteri
The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee
The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard
The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
The Golem and the Jinni by Helena Wecker
The Good People by Hannah Kent
The Invention of Exile by Vanessa Manko
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Latecomers by Helen Klein Ross
^The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenhoff
The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye
The Patriots by Sana Krasikov
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
*The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
The Removes by Tatjana Soli
*The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith
The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
*The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish
The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
The Wonder by Emma Donaghue
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
*Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
*Varina by Charles Frazier
White Houses by Amy Bloom

read and enjoyed before the site-
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon by Anthony Marra
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

world war two historical fiction

*All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
Love & Treasure by Ayelet Waldman
Stella by Takis Wurger
The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard
The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid
*The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
*The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman

a few favorite classics

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

easy reads

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

Books groupedby categories

quirky (but good) books

sweet stories

light- beach books

mysteries

suspenseful (perhaps even creepy?)

literary fiction

way, way literary fiction...great writing

Memoirs

dystopian novels

non-fiction

short stories

good but really different/fantasy

historical fiction

world war two historical fiction

a few favorite classics

easy reads

Books grouped
by categories