What book did you savor, staying up late to read, yet hoping you wouldn't reach the end?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

Most recently for me...if you lived in the 60's it will take you back there - only with more clarity Excellent book !

Edge of Eternity - Ken Follett

Edge of Eternity, the sweeping, passionate conclusion to the Century trilogy, is #1 on the bestseller lists in the USA, UK, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Throughout the ‘Century Trilogy’, Ken has followed the fortunes of five intertwined families — American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh — as they make their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all, the enormous social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Presidential impeachment, revolution — and rock and roll.

[ret5hd]

1. "Poisonwood Bible" and "Pillars of the Earth"

[mainstreetonce]

4. Oh Poisonwood Bible was a great book.

I read it is Hillary's favorite book.

[mainstreetonce]

11. Stones From the River

Ok I admit I was can Oprah follower.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. Gonna get Poisonwood Bible, thanks. I absolutely love Ken Follett. Takes

years for him to get a book out - only because he researches to the nth degree. Have read them all and loved them. He even made the building of churches interesting.

Haven't checked lately - he doesn't have a book out does he?

[mainstreetonce]

26. The Poisonwoid preacher

Will remind you of Trump

[elfin]

2. A Suitable Boy

Cant remember the author. Monstrously long, but I got sucked in and then swept away. India family histories, star-crossed forbidden love between Hindi and Muslim. Lots of history experienced in personal ways from both vantage points.

[pangaia]

3. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - in fact - all three of them.

[mainstreetonce]

5. The Kite Runner

...

[pangaia]

7. Great book...

[longship]

10. Yup! Steig Larsson rules!

His character, Lisbeth Salander, is incredible.

The Swedish films were good, especially the first one. Noomi Rapace was incredible in the role.

A sample from The Girl Who Played with Fire:

[pangaia]

12. yeah the movies were really good.

Favorite scene was when Lisbeth walks into the courtroom in full goth.. with that spiked haircut..

YEAH, BABY YOU GO GIRL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jodymarie aimee]

6. Tom Robbins

all of them

[gopiscrap]

8. several

"The Death of a President" "Judgement at Nuremburg" "God's Long Sumer" "On Hitler's Mountain" "Down These Mean Streets"

[TheDebbieDee]

9. ALL the Sidney Sheldon books...

Tom Clancy was a great read, too! He had a way of explaining technical gadgets and the way they work in ways that were easy for a non-technical person to understand...

[pangaia]

13. CATCH-22

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. Ahh....one of those books that you had to read and didn't read in high school. Thanks

I am putting it on my list !!!

[pangaia]

25. I read it in grad school-- 1968, shortly after it came out..

[bagelsforbreakfast]

30. absolutely - must have read it at least 3 times...

[58Sunliner]

14. Something Wicked This Way Comes-Ray Bradbury.

Other choice would have to be John LeCarre-Smiley's People, Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

19. Kudos - perhaps my smaller brain? John LeCarre too pedantic - based on the little I have tried?

[pangaia]

36. 'The Spy Who Came In from The Cold' kept me up all night!!

A Loooong time ago.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

39. I should try it again - think it was A Perfect Spy - just couldn't

read. Maybe my brain works better with age??

[pangaia]

42. It is probably one of the easier to follow...

Not that any are easy....

[rainy]

15. Cutting For Stone and All The Light You Cannot See.

Favorite quote from Cutting for Stone:
Abraham Verghese

“The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. Wow - great quote. Perhaps it is the difference between someone who is

self-absorbed and someone who is not? If you think of the people in your life who you naturally like - it is the person who is wide open, huh.

[mainstreetonce]

35. All the light You Cannot See

Is one of the best books I ever read.

[riverbendviewgal]

16. Greg Iles Natchez Burning series

It is a trilogy. 2nd book is The Bone Tree.
3rd one out the end of this month. Mississippi Blood.


I could not put down the books.


I also would like to add that I am a Tom Clancy fan. I think his best was In Debt's Honor. Amazing book that would make an amazing movie.

[DreamGypsy]

17. J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy ...

...some time ago...50 years...

I was ~15 years old, living in my parent's house in Idaho Falls; my older brother and sister were away in college or beyond.

It took me several months to get through all three volumes. The season was late fall, October or November, as I was approaching the end of the series.

I was up late, probably 10 or 11pm, when I read the last page. My parents were asleep. I was alone in the living room (our Siamese cat may have been there, but I don't remember). I closed the final page of the third book and contemplated the magical journey I had just finished. After a few minutes, I got up and walked the few steps to the front door. As I looked out into the dark night (the street light was dark) there was sudden flash of lightening to the north...then another brighter than the first...then another...

...I imagined the bright flashes of light, were the result of Gollum and the Ring, falling into the fire.

I wondered what Dark Lords I would face, and what Wizards I would meet, on the journey I would take with my ring of power...

...and I waited for that story to unfold.


It is a story which I am not yet ready to have reach the end.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. Have to share this with my sister in law who is a huge fan of Lord of Rings. What a great

memory and experience ! I shun anything fantasy (my brain doesn't go there) - and I know I shouldn't.

[shenmue]

27. Me too!

[pangaia]

37. Jeeze I read it in... 1966- Fifty ONE years ago.

I was in grad school...

Yikes I'm getting old...

[OregonBlue]

22. All the Game of Thrones Series.

[charlyvi]

24. John la Carre

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

[happy feet]

28. As an adult

All 3 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Kite Runner, Bend don't Break...

Long ago, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (slave narrative)

[justhanginon]

29. The Agony and the Ecstacy by Irving Stone.

Many years ago but I can still remember not being able to put it down.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

31. No Name by Wilkie Collins... A female Count of Monte Cristo with a feminist edge...in the 1800s

[Hugo24601]

32. Dragonwatch just came out.

Best book I ever read. Read it twice in a week.

[Jack-o-Lantern]

33. Stephen Kings "It", ....and most of everything else he ever wrote.

[3catwoman3]

34. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

Totally charming. I have read it several times, just to savor some favorite parts again and again.

I know many people think it is a waste of time to re-read a book, but I disagree. My older son is also a re-reader, and when were were discussing this while he was still in grade school (he will be 27 in 2 days), he pointed out that people will see good movies many times, and listen to a favorite song hundreds of times, if not more, so why is it regarded as strange to re-read a book, just because you know the story?

Some authors paint such wonderful word pictures that it a delight just to roll the words around in my mind over and over.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

40. good points ! What is Last Stand about?

[3catwoman3]

41. A gentle, slowly built love story...

...between a retired British army officer, who is a very proper gentleman, and a woman of Pakistani heritage, who runs the convenience shop in his little village. Both widowed. They begin a tentative friendship over a love of books, and have to stand up to negativity from their respective families who do not approve of the mixing of their cultures.

I think it would be a perfect Hallmark-type movie. I picture Pierce Brosnan as the major, but haven't picked a female lead yet.

Even the cover art is charming.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

45. Sounds interesting. Do you like WW2 stories/drama/movies ? One of my all time favorite

WW2 movies is this little know - Yanks - Richard Gere.

[3catwoman3]

46. Two of my favorite books are Winds of War and ...

...War and Remembrance. I've read them many times. I thought the TV series did a pretty good job except that Robert Mitchum was woefully miscast as Pug Henry. The books made frequent mention of how short Pug was, and Mitchum was certainly ot short. I would have cast Carroll O'Connor.

[pangaia]

38. WATERSHIP DOWN

Scared me to death!

[raccoon]

44. "Earth Abides"--George R. Stewart. Published 1949. In college I started it and couldn't put it

down. Read it all within 24 hours.