My more-than-a-decade-old, pre-kid bookclub recently dissolved.
To our credit, we tried resuscitation more than once but it was terminal.

I’ve grieved, but done pretty much nothing to assuage the pain or fill the void.
Until last week.

I arrived home from a really amazing vacation and all my books were:

1. sandy
2. read

The new year gaped.
What’s a girl to do?

Well. I’ll tell you.
I whipped off an email to a smattering of readerly friends and asked them what they’d loved recently. And here I am, less than a week later, with a handy-dandy list to take to the library, and a renewed sense of community around books.

It’s a funny, diverse little list and I thought I’d share it with you.
Y’know, just in case…
 

Middle-grade or Young Adult

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer

Paper Towns, John Green

Need, Carrie Jones

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing I and II, MT Anderson

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

The Eragaon series, Christopher Paolini

The Inkheart series, Cornelia Funke

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

Lament, Maggie Stiefvater

The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett

The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson

Novels or Short Stories

The Other, David Guterson

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

The Hakawati, Rabih Alameddine

The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver

Me and Kaminsky, Daniel Kehlmann

A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon

Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones

Slam, Nick Hornby

Nonfiction

The Most Famous Man in America, by Debbie Applegate

The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson

Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama

The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama

3 Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat

The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi