Here’s where I keep my collection of recommendations. Have one for me? Reply with a comment and I’ll add it to them list!
Fiction
by far my favorite category
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Birth of Venus – Sarah Dunant
The Blood of Flowers – Anita Amirrezvani
The Future of Love – Shirley Abbott
The Island – Victoria Hislap
Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
New Moon – Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer
Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The Tale of Murasaki – Liza Dalby
Time Lottery – Nancy Moser
Dark Intergers – Greg Egan
Molokai – Alan Brennert
Love’s Apprentice: The Romantic Education of a Modern Woman – Shirley Abbott
The Pilgrim’s Regress – C. S. Lewis
Sundays at Tiffanys – James Patterson
Peach Blossom Pavilion – Mingmei Yip
After Dark – Hauruki Murakami
Handle with Care – Jodi Picoult
Snow White, Rose Red – Patricia Wrede
The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield
The Prestige – Christopher Priest
Tithe – Holly Black
Lilah – Marek Halter
Mary – Marek Halter
And Only To Deceive -Tasha Alexander
A Poisoned Season – Tasha Alexander
The Piano Teacher – Janice Y. K. Lee
In the Courts of the Sun – Brian D’Amato
Honolulu – Alan Brennert
The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells
Chocolat – Joanne Harris
The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Lavinia – Ursula K. LeGuin
My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Picoult
The Dog of Marriage – Amy Hempel
The Dangerous Husband – Jane Shapiro
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Waiting – Ha Jin
Leonardo’s Swans – Karen Essex
Babette’s Feast – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
Shanghai Girls – Lisa See
Rabbit Proof Fence – Doris Pilkington
The Magic Christian – Terry Southern
The White Queen – Phillipa Gregory
Her Fearful Symmetry – Audrey Niffenegger
American Fuji – Sara Backer
The Unit – Ninni Holmqvist
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It – Maile Meloy
A Short History of Women: A Novel – Kate Walbert
Genesis – Bernard Beckett
The Vagrants: A Novel – Yiyun Li
Everything Matters!: A Novel – Jr., Ron Currie
One Second After – William R. Forstchen
Wanting – Richard Flanagan
Girl in the Blue Dress – Gaynor Arnold
Evening in the Palace of Reason – James Gaines
Nocturne – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Here There be Dragons – James A. Owens
Marked (House of Night series) – P. C. Cast
Life as We Knew It – Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Maze Runner Triology – James Dashner
Bones of Faerie – Janni Lee Simner
Malcolm & Juliet – Bernard Beckett
Jolt – Bernard Beckett
Howl’s Moving Castle – Diane Wynne Jones
Beastly – Alex Finn
Thirsty – M. T. Anderson
Watership Down – Richard Adams
The Kingdom of Ohio – Matthew Flaming
The Girl with Glass Feet – Ali Shaw
A Good Fall – Ha Jin
Where the God of Love Hangs Out – Amy Bloom
The Espressologist – Kristina Springer
The Concubine’s Daughter – Pai Kit Fai
Eve – Elissa Elliot
The Night Fairy – Laura Amy Schlitz
Incarceron – Catherine Fisher
Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
Bloody Irish – Bob Curran
Kitchen Chinese – Ann Mah
The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
Ordinary People – Judith Guest
Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder
Omeros – Derek Walcutt
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
Crossing – Andrew Fukuda
White Swan, Black Swan – Adrienne Sharp
Illium – Dan Simmons
Non-Fiction
because all play and no work makes Ashley dumb
Blink – Malcom Gladwell
Your Brain on Music – Daniel Levitin
Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer – C. S. Lewis
All Truth is God’s Truth – Arthur Holmes
The Cost of Discipleship – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Heretics – G. K. Chesterton
The Sociopath Next Door – Martha Stout
Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
Candide and The Maid of Orleans – Voltaire (B&N Classic Edition)
Love and Respect – Emerson Eggerichs
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus – John Gray
A Year in Japan – Kate T. Williamson
Mind Wide Open – Steven Johnson
The Dawkins Delusion – Alastair McGrath
When Did Jesus Become Republican – Mark Ellington
American Jesus – Stephen Prothero
The Tao of Pooh – Benjamin Hoff
The Te of Piglet – Benjamin Hoff
The Philosophy of House – Henry Jacoby and William Irwin
The Philosophy of Jesus – Peter Kreeft
A Shorter Summa – Peter Kreeft
The Problem of Pain – C. S. Lewis
Miracles – C. S. Lewis
Wishful Drinking – Carrie Fisher
Dumbest Generation – Mark Bauerlein
A Hope in the Unseen – Ron Suskind
Picking Cotton – Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
Long Way Round – Ewan MacGregor & Charley Boorman
Lost on Planet China – J. Maarten Troost
The Sex Life of Cannibals – J. Maarten Troost
Getting Stoned with Savages – J. Maarten Troost
The Man Who Made Vermeers – Jonathan Lopez
The Untold Story of the New Testament Church – Frank Viola
Living in a Foreign Language – Michael Tucker
Nightengales – Gillian Gill
How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth
In Two Minds – Os Guiness
The Philosopher and the Druid – Philip Freeman
Saving Face – Andy Robin
Under the Table: Saucy Tales from Culinary School – Katherine Darling
Blossoms in the Wind – Juliet Lac
My Life in France – Julia Child
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles – Jennifer Lee
A Severe Mercy – Sheldon Vanauken
Mini-Skirts Mothers & Muslims: Modelling Spiritual Values in Muslim Culture -Christine Mallouhi
How to Cook a Dragon – Linda Furiya
The Unlikely Disciple – Kevin Roose
The World Without Us – Alan Weisman
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City – Greg Grandin
How We Decide – Jonah Lehrer
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much – Allison Hoover Bartlett
The Music Room – William Fiennes
The Gastronomy of Marriage – Michelle Maisto
Falling for Science – Bernard Beckett
The Beginning of Western Science – David C. Lindberg
An Invitation to the Classics – Louise Cowan
Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House – Cheryl Mendelson
Committed – Elizabeth Gilbert
Nothing to Envy – Barbara Demick
Crazy Like Us – Ethan Watters
Forgotten God – Francis Chan
Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog – Lisa Scottoline
Unlikely Allies – Joel Richard Paul
High Society – Donald Spoto
One and the Same – Abigail Pogrebin
The Case for Books – Robert Darnton
Bach: The Conflict Between the Sacred and the Secular – Leo Schrade
Notes from a Small Island – Bill Bryson
Class with the Countess – Countess LuAnn de Lesseps
I Love it When You Talk Retro – Ralph Keys
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
You Are Not a Gadget – Jaron Lanier
Sex, Death and Oysters – Robb Walsh
Ireland’s Pirate Queen – Anne Chambers
1421: The Year China Discovered America – Gavin Menzies
The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester
How to Read Literature Like a Professor – Thomas C. Foster
Lunch in Paris – Elizabeth Bard
C. S. Lewis in a Time of War – Justin Phillips
No Reservations – Anthony Bourdain
A Cook’s Tour – Anthony Bourdain
The Anthropologist on Mars – Oliver Sacks
Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy, and Fairy Tale – Frederick Buechner
Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur’s Chronicler – Christina Hardyment
Roots of Order – Simone Weil
Creed or Chaos – Dorothy Sayers
Vampire Forensics – Mark Jenkins
The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You’ll Cry – Kathleen Flinn
Decision Points – George W. Bush
Who Killed Homer? – Victor Davis Hanson
Real Food Has Curves – Bruce Weinstein, Mark Scarbrough
Shakespeare:
it’s a lifetime goal to read everything on this list
The Tempest
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Measure for Measure
The Comedy of Errors
Much Ado About Nothing
Love’s Labour’s Lost
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
All’s Well That Ends Well
Twelfth Night or What You Will
The Winter’s Tale
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
The Two Noble Kinsmen
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII
Troilus and Cressida
Coriolanus
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Julius Caesar
Macbeth
Hamlet
King Lear
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Cymbeline