BookEnds Literary Agency This Month From BookEnds… March 2019!
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BookEnds’ Favorite Things, Part 3

Of course, my favorite books are actually the ones I represent, but as I can’t possibly pick out five of my favorites from such a good bunch, I’m picking the following out of several different categories:

Memoir:
One of my favorite memoirs/narrative nonfiction books is Dry by Augusten Burroughs. I just think Augusten has a great voice, wonderful humor, and touches me every time. Highly recommended. Start with Running with Scissors and move your way up. I have to add, though, that my book group read this and only two of us fell in love with it. But we decided that’s because it’s very hard to offend the two of us and there are some really amazingly crazy scenes. If you like Borat, you’ll probably like Augusten.

Sure to Make You Cry fiction:
I just love Elizabeth Berg’s Talk Before Sleep. I give it to a lot of my girl friends when I’m feeling warm and fuzzy. It’s a wonderful book about friends, live, connection, and death, of course. Can’t have a good weepy read without a little death thrown in there.

Spirituality:
Pema Chodren’s When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times is an amazing, open-hearted and useful book about living in the modern world where fear, rage, and despair are often overwhelming around us.

Mystery:
Karin Slaughter’s Blindsighted: I was thrilled to discover Karin Slaugher, whose dark and emotional books really appeal to me. The characters are very real, though these are very dark books. Of course, any Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child is also pretty fabulous.

Literary Fiction:
I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which I loved. It’s on my mind so I’ll pick that for today. If you haven’t read it, it’s really worth picking up. I love reading a book where I’m also learning something new, exposed to a culture, idea, setting I’ve never encountered.

There are so many amazing books and it’s so hard to pick a few that really shine. I think we could do a daily blog on our favorite books and each day they’d be different. How about our favorite Christmas cookies? That’s something to sink my teeth into!

—Jacky

Category: Blog

6 comments

  1. I recently discovered Eckhart Tolle as a nonfiction author…very interesting ideas, I must say. But George MacDonald (19th century) is my all-time favorite nonfiction author.

  2. TALK BEFORE SLEEP left me in a puddle of tears, too. I remember reading it while on a long bus ride, and I kept having to take reading breaks so that I wouldn’t end up sobbing in my neighbor’s lap. Great book.

    And the KITE RUNNER is the best book I read this year, too!

  3. Great choices, Jacky. Thanks! As I was still obsessing about this topic before I went to sleep last night 😀 (PLEASE do not start a favorite Christmas cookie thread; I will never get any rest), I realized no one had mentioned Elizabeth Berg yet. Glad to see her this morning.

    I just read a really fine women’s fiction–Jennie Shortridge’s EATING HEAVEN. It came highly recommended. I avoided for months, because it deals with cancer, care taking a loved one and emotional cooking/eating. Been there, cried that. I liked Lolly Winston’s GOOD GRIEF, though–anyone read that?–and kept hearing this was just as funny and poignant, so I finally picked it up and thoroughly enjoyed it. The author is on-the-money realistic with a great voice and wonderfully quirky perspective. It’s a NAL Accent. Interesting line.

    What are your favorites in women’s fiction?

  4. I have really enjoyed reading all your (Kim, Jessica and Jackie’s) favorites. Made me go pull out my dog-earred copy of the book I’ve read more than any other, my 1904 edition of Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter. I probably read it for the first time when I was about eight, and I have reread it at least yearly since then, so guess I’ll call it my “comfort read.” There’s something almost mystical about holding a book in my hands that’s over a hundred years old and finding a romance inside the pages that rings true even now.

  5. Okay, now I’m going to have to read When Things Fall Apart. It sounds perfect for any time of life, actually!

    I had an ancient copy of Wuthering Heights once…I LOVED to hold that thing while I read it, too. What a feeling. (I’m not sure I could see the print, now, however. Plus I don’t own it any more.)

    As to cookies: this year, in honor of some liver-cleansing friends of mine, I found a recipe for Coconut Blueberry Muffins. Oh my, they were wonderful…made with coconut flour and coconut milk, no wheat, no dairy, organic, etc. So it was muffins for us this year.

  6. Now I have to go get a copy of TALK BEFORE SLEEP! I like boo-hooers. They are cathartic.

    Claudia — I happened to pick up a copy of WUTHERING HEIGHTS today.

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