Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War, by Thomas G. Andrews.

I don't know if this book has been mentioned in the thread as of yet, but John Irving's "The World According to Garp" is solely responsible for getting me back into reading as a young adult.

When I was a kid, I loved reading. I was one of those kids who went to sleep everynight with a flashlight and a book under his pillow so that I could read when I was supposed to be sleeping.

During my teenage years I did what most teenage boys do, I gave up reading and started chasing girls.

Fast forward to the age of 19, I'm in AIT for the army, and my roomate had just graduated. He's clearing out his wall locker and I'm laying on my bed. He takes a book out of his locker tosses it at me and says "Do yourself a favor and read this." Then he walked out of the room without another word. I looked at the title and it was "The World According to Garp" by John Irving.

I don't know if he was joking or sincerely thought the book was worth reading, but I immediately started reading it, and quickly fell in love with the book. It's wondefully written, tells a wonderful story, and has all the drama and comedy you can handle. Within a year of that day, I had read everything John Irving had ever written. Lots of good books, but none ever touched me quite as much as "The World According to Garp."

So, do yourself a favor, read that book.

I am almost done with this book. It's like Apollo 13 on steroids. If you are an engineer nerd you will love it. It is being made into a movie staring Matt Damon and is being directed by Ridley Scott.

I'm considering Infinite Jest. I've read DFW's shorter pieces before, but never an undertaking this large. Anyone else tried it? Should I get a hard copy to help slog through the voluminous footnotes?

I read The Glory of Their Times. I really enjoyed it. Gives you a view of what it was like to play baseball in the early 1900's.

Also read Bang the Drum Slowly again. Great book.

I've read it twice. Still don't really get it, but love the experience.

Reading "The Circle" by Dave Eggers. What a darkly possible dystopian book. Wow.

Thought I'd read some African-American literature while I sit in airports, ride planes and be on long car rides. I'm really enjoying Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Hafta' admit I stopped a few months ago, as I had a travel hiatus, and need to finish it. Because I want to get back to Heart of Darkness and start Great Expectations.

In the last couple of months I've read:

Leslie Jamison - The Empathy Exams
M.F.K. Fisher - The Gastronomical Me
Jesmyn Ward - Men We Reaped
David Shields - How Literature Saved My Life
Roxane Gay - An Untamed State
David Shoemaker - The Squared Circle
Brian Oliu - Leave Luck to Heaven

Just finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

It's an extremely terrible read. It's a brilliant plot, but there are so many problems with the book it's difficult to withstand.

Right now I'm reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. It's a fairly fascinating read, as a great introspection into an interesting character's mind, with just enough weird fantasy and gay porn thrown in. LMAO

Debated getting Infinite Jest.

Then realized I don't have a job or in schoool and reading a novel is a ginormous waste of time.

The Ape and the Sushi Master by Frans De Waal.

Smonk by Tom Franklin: crazy ass "Western" set in Alabama. Cormac McCarthy meets Quentin Tarantino or something.

Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin: great historical fiction (based very loosely on an actual historical incident) about some land wars in the rural south.

Scar Lover by Harry Crews: very strange book that I'm not far enough into to decide what to make of it.

My daughter, the English/Creative Writing major's favorite book.