**Books I’ve added to my to-read list that you should too**
Me Talk Pretty One Day By David Sedaris (2000; Back Bay Books, 2001). A non-fiction book chronicling author David Sedaris’s move to France as he translates into English his attempts at the French language. Sedaris is fairly well known and the book promises to be both interesting and humorous, a good combination, especially if you’re like me and it takes a lot to get you to push a fiction book of the list in exchange for a non-fiction read. You can read the Goodreads summary here.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (2007; Riverhead, 2008). Two women, Mariam and Laila, both raised in Afghanistan but in completely different worlds are thrown together for a common cause. I’m normally not a fan of Middle Eastern war fiction, mainly because I’m not really a fan of any kind of realistic war-fiction, but I’m trying to expand my horizons and considering Hosseini’s first book was The Kite Runner this is probably a good one to choose. You can read the Goodreads summaryhere.
The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon (Grand Central, 2011). Lynnie and Homan fall in love. But that’s not the important part. Not only do they fall in love, but they fall in love at Pennsylvania’s State School for the Incurable and Feebleminded in 1968. Oh, and Lynnie’s white. Homan’s black. The two try to escape the institution because they have a secret to keep and protect. Lynnie’s pregnant. With a summary like this, let’s be honest. How can you not want to know what happens next? You can read the Goodreads summary here.
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell ”Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved.” I’ll be honest, this was all I needed to read to be intrigued by this book. Secrets, drug dealers, suspicious circumstance, and a coming of age story all set in Glasgow. How can you not be interested in settling down and digging through this mystery? You can read the Goodreads summary here.
The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon 25 years after being kidnapped Reggie’s mother shows up, but the serial killer who took her, Neptune, is still on the loose. With both Reggie’s life as an adolescent trying to live by herself after her mother is assumed dead and her adulthood being forced to relive that nightmare when her mother is found alive makes a tall task for McMahon’s writing to live up to, but the mystery is one that’s hard to pass up. This book has been getting a lot of praise and I wonder if it will live up to the hype (I’ve been sadly disappointed in a few books that have gotten this big a media push) but serial killers and suspense have a way of getting to me and I want to see what this one is all about. Read the Goodreads summaryhere.
The Archived by Victoria Schwab The first book in the “Archived” sci-fi/fantasy series Schwab sets up an interesting premise. The dead are called “histories” and “librarians” are the only ones who can read their stories. Then there are the Keepers, whose job it is to keep the histories from getting out. Throw in a main character with a painful past trying to get over a loss herself and you have what has the potential to be an excellent, imaginative series. You can read the Goodreads summary here.