Monday's Recommendations

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. The Ledge by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughn
2. The President’s Club by Nancy Gibbs
3. Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright
4. The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
5. Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas
6. Hunger Games (trilogy) by Suzanne Collins
7. River of Darkness by Buddy Levy
8. The Green Mile by Stephen King
9. The Campbell Series (starts with Highland Warrior) by Monica McCarty
10. The Winters in Bloom by Lisa Tucker

Monday Recommendations

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. On Writing by Stephen King
2. The World According to Garp by John Irving
3. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankel
4. Eat This, Not That by David Zinczenko
5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
6. The Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith Hahn Beer
7. The Good Food Revolution by Will Allen
8. Guts  by Kristen Johnsten
9. At Home by Bill Bryson
10. Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas

The Stand

The Stand by Stephen King

My rating (out of 5 stars):

4 stars—I really liked it.

Description from Goodreads.com:

“This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.

Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. The Stand : The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral complexity of a true epic.

For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.”

My Thoughts:

This is classic post-apocalyptic…which isn’t usually my favorite genre. However, Stephen King was able to keep me interested with this one.

The Stand was originally published in 1978 and I attempted to read it many years ago. It was reconfigured in the 90’s and I recently gave it another try. Being older (and hopefully wiser) made me appreciate it more. When I started it everyone was freaking out over the media’s portrayal of Ebola, which was utter nonsense, but still gave me chills because I was reading this book! Could something like this happen in real life? Yes!! Well…except for when it gets nutty with the “Dark Man.” The basic premise of everyone dying of a rampant disease is what kept me reading, not necessarily the supernatural stuff thrown in.

This novel is a big time commitment, but I believe it’s worth it.  

Monday Recommendations!

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This week-- 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. The Green Mile by Stephen King
2. Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
3. Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
4. In Death Series (first is Naked in Death) by J.D. Robb
5. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
6. The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
7. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
8. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
9. The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge by John Leonard
10. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd