Recommend One Book

Level Four Lockdown: Day Seventy-Three

Mood:   Middling - better for a workout in the park.

I'm a member of an online book club. Run by a mate, it is a place to discuss books and the like with over 600 people. My mate and her friend do a great job of running this book group. Okay, I'll admit that many of the books discussed in the group aren't my cup of tea - as there's a lot of popular fiction and crime novels which get a guernsey, where as my reading tastes are a bit more high brow, but that is okay - I have plenty of other places I can get into discussions about higher brow books.

Every Wednesday, without fail, she asks a quarantine question.

This week's question is: If you could recommend just one book, which one would it be?

My first response to this was, "What do you mean just one book?" Then I had a sit down and a think.

In my mind, I went through the permutations and combinations of books I've read and those I would read again, and those I've loved and yeah... it sent me into a bit of a mini meltdown. How can you ask a bibliophile that question. 

In the end, I put down Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex as the book I would recommend to people. No, not Captain Corelli's Mandolin - which is my favourite book, but there are elements which make it hard for people - like not meeting Corelli until around page 140 - among other things. 

But the also rans list is long. There are so many things you have to think about when you recommend a book. So many things come into consideration.

So, if I was to recommend just one book, here are a few of the factors which come into play.

Recommend a book for an educated, erudite man:

Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. It's a book about the Thai-Burma Railway and the death marches. It's a Booker winner. It's as lyrical as it is brutal. And when blokes like war, this is the book for them to read. And it isn't a blokey book. I just remember doing this in book group and two of our eight couldn't take the horror on some of the pages. It's in my top five reads ever. Always will be. 

Recommend a book for a boy who's getting into reading:

The Artemis Fowl series.  For kids around ten, these are fabulous. Not as well known as Harry Potter, but just as fun. Under no circumstances see the film. These books are fun. Artemis Fowl is a 13-year-old child genius. He steals a fairy's book that gets him in trouble with the underworld. The characters are fantastic. They're just really good fun, with lots of action. But do not see the film under any circumstances. 

Recommend a thick book for a week spent in Winter away from everything:

Oh, Hanya Yahahigara's A Little Life. It's just over 800 pages long. It's the story of four friends from college whose lives are interwoven over a couple of decades. It's a New York story. The characters are as tragic as they are memorable. It is brutal in places. It's very LGBTIQ friendly. It's great. But don't go into it when you're depressed.

Other also rans in this section are  Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White and Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch (but once again, DO NOT SEE THE MOVIE). 

Recommend a classic read:

Oh, this goes to Kurt Vonnygut's Slaughterhouse-5. It's short. It's mental. You'll be regularly asking yourself  'What would Billy Pilgrim do? And so it goes. 

Recommend a book by an Australian woman author:

Oh, this is a hard one - as I have many favourites:

• Charlotte Wood's The Natural Way of Things
• Heather Rose's The Museum of Modern Love
• Sofie Laguna's The Eye of the Sheep
• Anna Funder's All That I Am
• Hannah Kent's Burial Rites
• Geraldine Brooks' The Year of Wonders
• Lily Brett's Too Many Men

I hope to join this list one day. 

Recommend a Young Adult read:

Don't tell anybody, but I like me a bit of young adult literature. I could never write it, but I like reading it. My top three for this category are:

• Angie Thomas's The Hate You Give
• Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief
• Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games (The first book anyway, it's amazing)

Recommend a non-fiction book:

Again there are quite a few to choose from but here are a few favourites:

• Christopher McDougall's Born to Run - it's about ultra-marathon running and it is awesome
• Truman Capote's In Cold Blood does not age. 
• Helen McDonald's Human Remains - a fun, and grizzly took at the ethics of disposing of the dead - it's awesome. 

That will do. But I now feel better about recommending a book. 

Today's song: