Suggest me a book, to READ.

I've recently grown tired of my all picture books, I think they might be hampering my development. I have a wealth of knowledge on bimbo's though if anyone wants to learn.


I've always enjoyed reading but never actually went out and searched for some. Now I really think getting back into reading would be good for me, and let me practice on some alone time.

My taste in books is pretty normal I'd say:

No Sci-Fi please. (I suppose a light one would be ok but nothing about aliens who want to use me for breeding)
No cheesy romantic novel about a werewolf with throbbing manmeat.
Not very angsty (some is fine but let's not have it out of hand).
I like some sorrowful books or books without a happy ending.
Length doesn't bother me.
Needs to be surprising, I can't stand a predictable book.

If you guys want to help me out I would be very glad.

How old are you? It's easier to suggest a book if I know what age group I'm talking to.

18, I'm pretty much a book virgin and I'm open to anything.

Huh. Okay, then. There's the Left Behind Series. It's set in 2012, I think, and has to do with the Antichrist's coming and all that. I've only read the second book, though.
Fever 1789 (I don't remember the author) is a pretty good book, read it in the fourth grade. It's about the 1789 epidemic.
Then there's Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and that's about a boy who finds a set of tapes recorded by a girl two weeks before her suicide. That was really good.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a classic. Um...I can't think of anymore. And the last two are probably more for teenage girls. Sorry 'bout that.

If you want to go for some non-fiction, I suggest The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins or The God Delusion by the same guy, although I haven't read the latter, just heard it was a good book.

Yeah, I'll check a couple of those out.

Thank you!

The Monk by Matthew Lewis is a story about a monk named Ambrosio and his downfall from a pious man to an outright pervert through murder, rape, incest, making pacts with the devil thanks a little mischief named Mathilda. There are also two other sub-plots going on at the same time that don't seem to connect with the main story, but they are all related and converge into one at the end. And no, he does not get redemption.

Series Of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, is yes located in the children's (or is tween's?) section but it is also a great series of older people to read, none of the books in the series end on a happy note (except for the last...sort of) and the plot lines are really good, and all the books have a sombre feel to it.

Originally Posted by shakalaka

Series Of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, is yes located in the children's (or is tween's?) section but it is also a great series of older people to read, none of the books in the series end on a happy note (except for the last...sort of) and the plot lines are really good, and all the books have a sombre feel to it.

I love that series! I am forever a Lemony Snicket fan.

I personally love the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker.

He's not a writer everyone can enjoy though. His books are fantastical, philosophical, and perverted. The world he creates in this series is as rich as Tolkien's Middle Earth. This may be the opposite of what you're looking for, but just throwing it out there in case.

If you're interested, this is the series' order: The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior-Prophet, The Thousandfold Thought

The Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley.

both REALLY good books but you should probably read them in order to get the background involved in The Blue Sword.

The reluctant fundamentalist. It's surprising and very engaging.

Amazon.com Review
Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, dealt with the confluence of personal and political themes, and his second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, revisits that territory in the person of Changez, a young Pakistani. Told in a single monologue, the narrative never flags. Changez is by turns naive, sinister, unctuous, mildly threatening, overbearing, insulting, angry, resentful, and sad. He tells his story to a nameless, mysterious American who sits across from him at a Lahore cafe. Educated at Princeton, employed by a first-rate valuation firm, Changez was living the American dream, earning more money than he thought possible, caught up in the New York social scene and in love with a beautiful, wealthy, damaged girl. The romance is negligible; Erica is emotionally unavailable, endlessly grieving the death of her lifelong friend and boyfriend, Chris.

Changez is in Manila on 9/11 and sees the towers come down on TV. He tells the American, "...I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased... I was caught up in the symbolism of it all, the fact that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees..." When he returns to New York, there is a palpable change in attitudes toward him, starting right at immigration. His name and his face render him suspect.

Ongoing trouble between Pakistan and India urge Changez to return home for a visit, despite his parents' advice to stay where he is. While there, he realizes that he has changed in a way that shames him. "I was struck at first by how shabby our house appeared... I was saddened to find it in such a state... This was where I came from... and it smacked of lowliness." He exorcises that feeling and once again appreciates his home for its "unmistakable personality and idiosyncratic charm." While at home, he lets his beard grow. Advised to shave it, even by his mother, he refuses. It will be his line in the sand, his statement about who he is. His company sends him to Chile for another business valuation; his mind filled with the troubles in Pakistan and the U.S. involvement with India that keeps the pressure on. His work and the money he earns have been overtaken by resentment of the United States and all it stands for.

Hamid's prose is filled with insight, subtly delivered: "I felt my age: an almost childlike twenty-two, rather than that permanent middle-age that attaches itself to the man who lives alone and supports himself by wearing a suit in a city not of his birth." In telling of the janissaries, Christian boys captured by Ottomans and trained to be soldiers in the Muslim Army, his Chilean host tells him: "The janissaries were always taken in childhood. It would have been far more difficult to devote themselves to their adopted empire, you see, if they had memories they could not forget." Changez cannot forget, and Hamid makes the reader understand that--and all that follows. --Valerie Ryan