This list should only include books you're reading for fun. If this list gets big enough, this page might be a neat way to get a quick book recommendation. Please alphabetize by author's last name.
- After you finish the book, or if you have read a book on the list, consider adding a brief rating or review (put two vertical lines after the author's name, then type) and consider appending your name so that people will know whose opinion it is.
| title | author | rating (1-10) or review |
|---|---|---|
| A History of God | Karen Armstrong | |
| Second Foundation | Isaac Asimov | |
| Boober's Colorful Soup | Joanne Barkan | |
| Autobiography of Red | Anne Carson | |
| Werewolves in their Youth | Michael Chabon | |
| The World Crisis: 1911-1918 | Sir Winston Churchill | |
| Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell | Susanna Clarke | |
| State of Fear | Michael Crichton | |
| The Deptford Trilogy | Robertson Davies | |
| Love in a Time of Cholera | Gabriel Garcia-Marquez | |
| Complications | Atul Gawande | |
| The Prophet | Kahlil Gibran | |
| The Tipping Point | Malcolm Gladwell | This book advances a compelling argument that small changes in policies, or actions by one individual, can have major effects. It's worth reading just for the examples he gives of the phenomenon in action. (07djd) |
| Team of Rivals | Doris Kearns Goodwin | |
| Blue Highways | William Least Heat-Moon | |
| Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A. Heinlein | |
| The Eye of the World | Robert Jordan | |
| Cell | Stephen King | |
| The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Milan Kundera | |
| Girl With the Dragon Tattoo | Stieg Larsson | |
| Freakonomics | Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner | |
| Wicked | Gregory Maguire | |
| Teacher Man | Frank McCourt | A great book of stories about teaching in various types of schools. Definitely not your average teacher. (07djd) |
| Amsterdam | Ian McEwan | |
| The Emperor's Children | Claire Messud | |
| A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry | |
| South of the Border, West of the Sun | Haruki Murakami | |
| A Wild Sheepchase | Haruki Murakami | |
| Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story | Kim Neely | |
| Lucifer's Hammer | Larry Niven | |
| Choke | Chuck Palahniuk | |
| Doctor Zhivago | Boris Pasternak | |
| Confessions of an Economic Hit Man | John Perkins | |
| American Theocracy | Kevin Phillips | |
| Bad Dirt: Wyoming stories 2 | Annie Proulx | |
| Gravity's Rainbow | Thomas Pynchon | |
| Stories of God | Rainier Maria Rilke | |
| Gilead | Marilynne Robinson | |
| Monkey Business | John Rolfe and Peter Troob | |
| Nausea | Jean-Paul Sartre | |
| Gone for Soldiers | Jeff Shaara | |
| On Beauty | Zadie Smith | |
| Cryptonomicon | Neal Stephenson | I like this book so much that I am reading only a few chapters a night so that it will last as long as possible. (07djd) |
| Quicksilver | Neal Stephenson | I recommend this entire trilogy (Quicksilver is the first, The Confusion is the second and in my opinion best, and The System of the World is third). They were by far the most fun books I read in 2006, with some interesting background in European history thrown in. (07elb) |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | |
| Niebla | Miguel de Unamuno | |
| Rabbit, Run | John Updike | |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut | This book is exceptional in three ways: The writing style, the telling of the story of Dresden, and the main character's being at the same time seemingly crazy and also completely understandable as a person. (07djd) |
| The Once and Future King | T.H.White | |
| Night | Elie Wiesel | The new 2006 translation by his wife makes this book even better. If you have never read a story of the Holocaust by someone who survived it, or even if you have, this is a book not to miss. (07djd) |
| This Boy's Life | Tobias Wolff | |
| The Razor's Edge | W. Somerset Maugham |