Recommend | Booking Through Thursday

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Somebody walks up to you and says, “I need a really good book to read–any genre. What do you recommend?”
What’s the first book off the top of your head?

Deb, Booking Through Thursday

What a difficult question!

Do I know this person? Do I know their reading preference? What have I most recently read that impressed me?

These past weeks, I have reread four Chaim Potok books, thoroughly enjoying them and compared to when I read them the first time, on this occasion, I read these in the right order!1 So anyone who asks me now, I will recommend The Chosen to start someone on the Chaim Potok books.

I am also still in the middle of the last Thursday Next book2, and for someone who has a more than general understanding of English literature, I’d certainly recommend picking up The Eyre Affair.

Another book I’m currently working my way through is Danubia: all about the history of the Habsburgs and Europe. It’s a big ask and it’s quite complicated because the genealogy is not always clear (and I keep forgetting which Maximilian I am reading about).

And there are the perennial favorites from when I was a child. If you’re asking me for an eight-year-old child, I will recommend author Tonke Dragt.3 For a curious girl of about 10-12, I’d recommend anything written by Thea Beckman.4

[ Recommend, Booking Through Thursday]

  1. I read his The Chosen/The Promise and My Name Is Asher Lev/The Gift of Asher Lev. My first Chaim Potok book was The Gift of Asher Lev and I seem to have worked my way back to the The Chosen when I was in my teens. ↩︎

  2. Desperately hoping Jasper Fforde will continue these soon! ↩︎

  3. Some of her books are good for the ages 8-10, others would fit teens better. ↩︎

  4. Her books regularly feature kick-ass, awesome and strong women as the main character of a book. ↩︎

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