Books We’ve Read

When an English teacher marries a writer, you have to expect life to include a passionate love of books.  When we were long-distance dating, we started reading a novel together over the phone.  Rob would read aloud and I usually dozed off.  It became something we did that we enjoyed and have continued doing.  We choose a book together at the bookstore and when we’re winding down for the night, Rob will read to me until I start to snore or don’t laugh during something funny.  We’ve read some amazing books over the years we’ve been together and occasionally we read one that is so awful that we can’t finish it. Below is a collection of only some of what we’ve read, what we loved and what we hated. We’re currently reading:

People I Want to Punch in the Throat by Jenn Mann. So funny!

• The Lost City of the Monkey God I’m never going to Honduras. This book is great, about how a NatGeo team used radar to map the rainforest and find a lost city. But the snakes and the bugs and the parasites.. omg. Just.. no.
• Jurassic Park And now I’m scared of dinosaurs. This is one of Rob’s all time favorites and I’d never read it. Pretend the movie didn’t happen because the book is excellent.
• Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House  We can all admit it. The Trump Administration is a huge dumpster fire. None of us can look away.
• The Martian (the classroom edition) OMG I didn’t sleep. This book has all of my worst fears rolled into one. I cried from anxiety. Great book.
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham (for school) Parts are super funny and cute. The Civil Rights stuff near the end feels shoehorned in there for effect. It could’ve used another edit.
• Men At Arms  Ah, Discworld. It took me forever to relent and read Small Gods but I’m completely sucked in. In this one, Carrot gets promoted to help fight Disorganized Crime. Hilarity ensues.
• Reaper Man  Even Death suffers an existential crisis now and again.
• Night Watch This is what happens when time travel meets Discworld.
• Murder on the Orient Express My favorite Agatha book. Rob found it so-so. Sometimes his opinion is not to be trusted.
• Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill  We love Candace Millard. Her books are always excellent and so interesting. This one.. Churchill was a whiny bitch who got lucky.
• It’s All Relative More AJ Jacobs foibles, this time about genealogy and his family tree. It culminates with the largest family reunion ever.
• Bad Chili Rob has always like Joe Lansdale and I’d never read any of his stuff. Enter Hap and Leonard. These books always crack me up. We’ve also read Mucho Mojo and Vanilla Ride. Funny and irreverent.
• Dad is Fat Jim Gaffigan is best known as a standup comedian and actor. His books are hilarious! We also read Food: A Love Story which is a great read.
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Having just returned from Vegas, all I can say is I believe every word.
• Nature Girl Carl, please start writing books with a plot again, instead of the random cast of characters in some odd situation.
• Walking the Amazon This guy. What a douchebag. I can’t resist answering back. “Because Luke’s a pussy!” is a common retort when he criticizes his trekking partner. We got through the book, only so I could see if he got the arrogant beaten out of him by some indigenous tribe.
• Them
• Chomp What a fun read! We laughed and just really enjoyed this book.
• Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls We love Sedaris and this is the latest in a line of great books. Laugh out loud, cringe worthy stories, worth picking up for sure!
• The King’s Speech
• The River of Doubt Great book. Well researched. Interesting prose. Totally unknown part of Teddy Roosevelt’s past for us and we enjoyed reading this so much we bought Millard’s second book, Destiny of the Republic about James Garfield’s assassination. Buy both of these books and settle in. Excellent.
• Samantha Bee I think we’ve made mention before how much we love The Daily Show and Samantha Bee is one of my favorite former “correspondents.” Well written, funny and at times touching, she’s got some crazy childhood stories that cracked us up.
• The Count of Monte Cristo This was the first book we read together. I’m not sure we ever finished it. So many characters and sub-plots.. not great bedtime reading. I’d like to finish it one day though. Or at least try again.
• The Kite Runner One of my favorites.. this book made me cry. We started it on our honeymoon and finished it the summer of 2008.
• Walk in the Woods One of our favorites.. laugh out loud funny. “Screw you, Bryson” is a favorite saying in our house now.
• The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid Another great Bryson book. We gave this one and Walk in the Woods to my dad for Christmas and he said he cracked up the whole time. We loved this one.
• I’m a Stranger Here Myself As a repatriated expat, I totally understood the whole fish-out-of-water in your own country thing. More introspective than other Bryson books but still a stronger book from his collection.
• The Year of Living Biblically If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to follow all of Levitical law to the letter, this is a great book. It’s funny and charming without being sacrilegious or snarky about faith.
• Garden of Beasts We loved Devil in the White City and we really wanted to love this book. But alas, it’s weak. The source material was probably not great and it felt like he pitched the book, got sign off to do it and then realized he had crap sources to pull it off. If you want to read it, you can have ours. Makes a great doorstop.
• The Gravediggers Daughter We hate this book. This book will eat away at your brain. The first 50 pages consist of someone stalking the protagonist on a canal tow path. This is the worst book we’ve ever read. And we’ve read a lot of books. When we rate books on a scale of OhMyGODBUYTHIS and OMGBURNTHIS, this book is at the top of the burnage scale. It’s that bad.
• Population 485 At times a bit inconsistent, overall, an enjoyable read. A bit of Mayberry in Wisconsin.
• Native Tongue Rob comes from the land of theme parks and crazy people. Carl Hiaasen books are usually just what the doctor ordered when he wants to remember why he doesn’t ever want to return to Florida. My only real gripe about Carl’s books? He uses characters full names through the entire book. We get it. Joe Smith is the central character. You can call him Joe and we know who you mean.
• Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim One of Sedaris’ best. Funny and poignant. If you have a nutty family, this is a great reminder that they can be endearing and infuriating all at once.
• Bossypants The first 150 pages are quite strong and funny. When she transitions from a writer to an actress, it falls apart. Or maybe she does. I don’t know. She’s a bit far up her own ass at the end. Sigh.
• The Spiritualist This book is awful. A period “thriller” with a plucky heroine. We started this on our honeymoon and I almost chucked it in the fire pit. It’s not The Gravedigger’s Daughter bad but it’s pretty close. A 9 on the OMGBURNIT scale.
• At Home Our first foray into Bryson’s non-travel selections. Interesting and at times a bit random, it’s a fun bit of history of everyday, common items and homes. We saw Bryson interviewed about the book just before Christmas 2010 and ironically enough, each bought the book for the other for Christmas. Surprise! I got you the same thing!
• McCarthy’s Bar A charming, funny travel memoir about a Londoner trying to reconnect with his distant Celtic roots with a trip through modern Ireland. His first rule of travel: “Never pass up a bar with your name on the door.” After finishing it, we agreed that an Ireland trip is in our future.
• Me of Little Faith We saw Lewis Black perform in Modesto in summer of 2011 and he was hysterically funny. We love him on The Daily Show and I bought this book for Rob for Christmas this last year. It’s caustic and funny, just the way we like Lewis.
• Drop Dead Healthy Oh AJ.. We waited for this book, the third in his series of seeking perfection in Mind, Body and Spirit. I think it’s one of the weaker of the 3. It just.. hmm. I wanted the Super Size Me moment of Oh My God why do people do this to themselves and it just wasn’t there. I also wanted more of his wife and kids. Julie makes his books so funny because all she can do is stand there and roll her eyes.
• Good Omens Darkly funny. A great collaboration between Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
• The Family Fang We read it. We were disappointed with how the plot fell apart. A nice premise initially but begins to feel like a series of humorous vignettes that have no purpose. And really, it lacks plausibility and the characters don’t have much likeability. Probably could be a great book with another re-write of the entire thing. Apparently Nicole Kidman’s production company has purchased the rights to create this on film. I’d probably skip that too.
• Turn Right at Machu Picchu Great book..we plan to visit South America now when it was previously off our must-see travel list.
• The Bear Attic We attempted this book once before and couldn’t get through the first essay without being annoyed. I think we wanted it to be Bryson and it just wasn’t. But, the second go-around was better and we enjoyed this. The first essay is the strongest and funniest but we still chuckled quite a bit. I think the worst part is that nearly every piece ends abruptly, like he couldn’t figure out how to end it so he just quit writing.
• Island Vice Really dense, a good read but drags in the middle. We’re having a hard time finishing it.
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children THIS BOOK IS AWFUL. Do not waste your money. It’s a 9+ on the OMGBURNIT scale.
• The Sisters Brothers Shortlisted for the Booker prize. Really loved this book. It’s so well-written and real, it reads as historical non-fiction. Funny, violent in places, but really worth picking up.
• The Edge of Dark Water This was a great book; at times a bit young adult-ish but it overcomes that in the last half. We easily read 25 pages a night and burned through it faster than we normally do. There are parts that are grisly in detailing and sometimes too gross for me to listen to. But the plot drives this and if you don’t love Jinx by the end of this book, I don’t think we can continue to be friends.
• Under the Banner of Heaven Really interesting, at times disturbing and downright bizarre. I think my favorite section has to do with Joseph Smith’s revelations from God that named his wife, Emma, specifically. She apparently wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having another wife move in, until God told Joseph to let her know it was His idea.The murders of Barbara and Erica Lafferty are graphic so if you are disturbed by that kinda stuff (as I am), skip over those few pages.
• Stardust We went to see Neil Gaiman in SF for his farewell book tour. Rob was beyond excited and so we read this to help get ready. A delightful book and worth a read..
• Blue Latitudes An interesting read, mostly the historical aspects of Cook’s journey. We enjoyed it but not as much as the Machu Picchu book or other travel pieces we’ve read.
• The Magicians This book. Infuriating characters, odd scenarios, pretentious author. GAH! Rob likes it. I’m not impressed.
• The Magician King Of course we read the sequel. How could we not? In some ways, more of what made the first book annoying and a bit unsatisfying. Be forewarned, there is a graphic rape scene at the end. The plot is the typical quest. Some people love this series but it’s not really my thing. Formulaic fantasy. Meh.
• A Short History of Nearly Everything Rob liked this book a lot more than I did. At times, it was really dry and dense. Other parts were interesting but it lacked Bryson’s voice. Not my favorite.
• Moab is a Washpot Where do I even start. This book has it all and some graphic sex and molestation between pre-teen boys. I don’t know that I’d recommend it because of that alone. There were parts we skipped. The story of redemption is hollow and it’s hard to get past some of the dalliances he had. Everyone has sexual experiences but there’s no need to write a book about them.
• Going Postal More Discworld. I love the books that feature Death.