Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls
David Sedaris
288 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
Me Talk Pretty One Day, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
SORTA LIKE:
The above
FIRST LINE:
“One thing that puzzled me during the American healthcare debate was all the talk about socialized medicine and how ineffective it’s supposed to be.”
————————————————————————————
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
180 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Beautiful and Damned, This Side of Paradise
SORTA LIKE:
Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Notebook
FIRST LINE:
“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
————————————————————————————
A Thousand Cuts
Simon Lelic
294 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Child Who, The Facility
SORTA LIKE:
Tana French writes We Need to Talk About Kevin
FIRST LINE:
“I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it.”
————————————————————————————
Light
Michael Grant
ALSO WROTE:
The other Gone books
SORTA LIKE:
Stephen King writes YA fiction
FIRST LINE:
“The little girl’s hair caught fire.”
————————————————————————————
Born Round
Frank Bruni
354 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
A Gospel of Shame, Ambling into History
SORTA LIKE:
My Footprint, Fat Girl
FIRST LINE:
“I have neither a therapist’s diagnosis nor any scientific literature to support the following claim, and I can’t back it up with more than a cursory level of detail. So you’re just going to have to go with me on this: I was a baby bulimic.”
————————————————————————————
Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead
Sheryl Sandberg
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
Every professional self-help book — 10 Ways to Be An Effective Leader, etc. — but not as dry
FIRST LINE:
“I got pregnant with my first child in the summer of 2004.”
————————————————————————————
The Passage
Justin Cronin
912 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Twelve (sequel)
SORTA LIKE:
The Strain meets World War Z
FIRST LINE:
“Before she became the Girl from Nowhere–the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years–she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.”
3 PAPERCUTS: [FULL REVIEW]
————————————————————————————
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr.
334 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, Beyond Armageddon (editor)
SORTA LIKE:
The Dark Tower meets Fahrenheit 451, written by Gary Shteyngart
FIRST LINE:
“Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice’s Lenten fast in the desert.”
————————————————————————————
Issac’s Storm
Erik Larson
323 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts
SORTA LIKE:
The Perfect Storm meets The Wave
FIRST LINE:
“Throughout the night of Friday, September 7, 1900, Isaac Monroe Cline found himself waking to a persistent sense of something gone wrong.”
————————————————————————————
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
224 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
John Green gets depressed
FIRST LINE:
“Dear friend, I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.”
————————————————————————————
Divergent (also Insurgent)
Veronica Roth
496 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Insurgent
SORTA LIKE:
Hunger Games meets The Giver
FIRST LINE:
“There is one mirror in my house.”
————————————————————————————
The Broom of the System
David Foster Wallace
467 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Infinite Jest, Consider the Lobster
SORTA LIKE:
Chuck Klosterman meets Jennifer Egan
FIRST LINE:
“Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden.”
————————————————————————————
The Marriage Plot
Jeffrey Eugenides
416 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides
SORTA LIKE:
Leaving the Atocha Station meets The Rules of Attraction
FIRST LINE:
“To start with, look at all the books.”
————————————————————————————
Better Off Without ‘Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
Chuck Thompson
336 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
Smile When You’re Lying, To Hellholes and Back
SORTA LIKE:
What’s the Matter with Kansas? after a few beers
FIRST LINE:
“Nothing separates the North and South like religion. Not politics, not racism, not Paula Deen’s butter popsicles.”
————————————————————————————
Lost Memory of Skin
Russell Banks
416 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter
SORTA LIKE:
Little Children meets The Woodsman
FIRST LINE:
“It isn’t like The Kid is locally famous for doing a good or a bad thing and even if people knew his real name it wouldn’t change how they treat him unless they looked it up online which is not something he wants to encourage.”
————————————————————————————
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
225 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Last Man, other stuff
SORTA LIKE:
The Frankenstein you’re used to, meets Heart of Darkness
FIRST LINE:
“To Mrs Saville, England. St Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17–. You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
————————————————————————————
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
Don Winslow
272 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Savages, California Fire and Life
SORTA LIKE:
Savages meets Face/Off
FIRST LINE:
“Here’s how Tim Kearney gets to be the legendary Bobby Z.”
————————————————————————————
No Easy Day
Mark Owen (Matt Bissonnette)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
The Red Circle, Lone Survivor
FIRST LINE:
“When I was in junior high school in Alaska, we were assigned a book report.”
————————————————————————————
Looking for Alaska
John Green
221 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Fault in our Stars, Paper Towns
SORTA
A Separate Peace
FIRST LINE:
“Everybody was sitting on sleeping bags.”
————————————————————————————
Paper Towns
John Green
305 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Fault in our Stars, Looking for Alaska
SORTA LIKE:
Looking for Alaska meets Youth in Revolt
FIRST LINE:
“With a bag in each hand, I paused for a moment outside the van, staring at her. ‘Well, it was a helluva night,’ I said finally.”
————————————————————————————
The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis
326 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
American Psycho, Less Than Zero
SORTA LIKE:
American Psycho meets I Am Charlotte Simmons
FIRST LINE:
“and it’s a story that might bore you but you don’t have to listen, she told me, because she always knew it was going to be like that, and it was, she thinks, her first year, or, actually weekend, really a Friday, in September, at Camden, and this was three or four years ago, and she got so drunk that she ended up in bed, lost her virginity (late, she was eighteen) in Lorna Slavin’s room, because she was a Freshman and had a roommate and Lorna was, she remembers, a Senior or a Junior and usually sometimes at her boyfriend’s place off campus, to who she thought was a Sophomore Ceramics major but who was actually either some guy from N.Y.U., a film student, and up in New Hampshire just for The Dressed to Get Screwed party, or a townie.”
—————————————————————–
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
Second Life meets The Matrix meets Surrogates
FIRST LINE:
“Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.
—————————————————————–
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
335 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Committed, The Last American Man
SORTA LIKE:
Under the Tuscan Sun
FIRST LINE:
“I wish Giovanni would kiss me.”
—————————————————————–
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn
ALSO WROTE:
Dark Places, Sharp Objects
SORTA LIKE:
Room meets The Likeness
FIRST LINE:
“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.”
—————————————————————–
Case Histories
Kate Atkinson
310 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Behind the Scenes at the Museum, One Good Turn
SORTA LIKE:
Tana French
FIRST LINE:
“How lucky were they? A heat wave in the middle in the school holidays, exactly where it belonged.”
————————————————————————-
Leaving the Atocha Station
Ben Lerner
184 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Lichtenberg Figures
SORTA LIKE:
The Ask meets Tropic of Cancer
FIRST LINE:
“The first phase of my research involved waking up weekday mornings in a barely furnished attic apartment, the first apartment I’d looked at after arriving in Madrid, or letting myself be woken by the noise from La Plaza Santa Ana, failing to assimilate that noise fully into my dream, then putting on the rusty stovetop espresso machine and rolling a spliff while I waited for the coffee.”
————————————————————————-
The Tiger’s Wife
Téa Obreht
338 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
The Historian meets Life of Pi
FIRST LINE:
“In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.”
—————————————————————-
Gone
Michael Grant
ALSO WROTE:
The rest of the Gone series
SORTA LIKE:
Lord of the Flies meets X Men meets Under the Dome meets Desperation
FIRST LINE:
“One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone.”
————————————————————–
Modern New York: The Life and Economics of a City
Greg David (I know him!)
217 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
TBD (I’m sure he’ll strike again.) Also, this blog.
SORTA LIKE:
An almanac of Crain’s New York Business, with Greg David flair
FIRST LINE:
“On a wet and depressing winter day in February 2009, over 1,000 New York executives crowded into the ballroom at the Grand Hyatt in Midtown.”
————————————————————–
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer
326 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Everything is Illuminated, Eating Animals
SORTA LIKE:
Falling Man meets About a Boy
FIRST LINE:
“What about a teakettle?”
———————————————————————–
Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What it Means to Be Black Now
Touré
243 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
Soul City, Never Drank the Kool-Aid
SORTA LIKE:
Tavis Smiley and Cornel West had a baby
FIRST LINE:
“Once, I went skydiving.”
———————————————————————————
Just Kids
Patti Smith
288 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Auguries of Innocence, The Coral Sea
FIRST LINE:
“I was asleep when he died.”
—————————————————————————–
The Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower Book V)
Stephen King
925 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The other Dark Tower books
SORTA LIKE:
The Village meets The Wizard of Oz
FIRST LINE:
“Tian was blessed (though few farmers would have used such a word) with three patches: River Field, where his family had grown rice since time out of mind; Roadside Field, where ka-Jaffords had grown sharproot, pumpkin, and corn for those same long years and generations; and Son of a Bitch, a thankless tract which mostly grew rocks, blisters, and busted hopes.”
—————————————————————————————
My First New York: Early Adventures in the Big City
Compiled by New York magazine
239 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
A Woody Allen movie
FIRST LINE:
“This book started out as a magazine feature that, like the city it celebrated, soon grew a bit crowded for its size.”
3 PAPERCUTS: [FULL REVIEW]
————————————————————-
Bag of Bones
Stephen King
732 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
A million other things
SORTA LIKE:
Desperation, Needful Things
FIRST LINE:
“On a very hot day in August of 1994, my wife told me she was going to the Derry Rite Aid to pick up a refill on her sinus medicine prescription—this is stuff you can buy over the counter these days, I believe.”
———————————————————————-
The Night Eternal
Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan
ALSO WROTE:
The Strain, The Fall
SORTA LIKE:
The Strain, The Fall
FIRST LINE:
“On the second day of darkness they rounded them up.”
—————————————————————————————
Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling
Beth Raymer
228 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
Bringing Down the House meets I Was Told There’d Be Cake
FIRST LINE:
“The thing I liked best about working at Komol was Jowtee, the invisible spirit who controlled the restaurant’s destiny.”
———————————————————————————–
In the Garden of Beasts
Erik Larson
375 pages (in hardcover, not counting end-notes/bibliography)
ALSO WROTE:
The Devil in the White City, Isaac’s Storm
SORTA LIKE:
The Devil in the White City meets Valkyrie
FIRST LINE:
“Once, at the dawn of a very dark time, an American father and daughter found themselves suddenly transported from their snug home in Chicago to the heart of Hitler’s Berlin.”
———————————————————————————–
Back to Work
Bill Clinton
192 pages (in hardcover)
SORTA LIKE:
Third World America (but better)
FIRST LINE:
“I wrote this book because I love my country and I’m concerned about our future.”
—————————————————————————————
What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
Thomas Frank
310 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
One Market Under God, The Wrecking Crew
SORTA LIKE:
The World is Flat meets Fear of Falling
FIRST LINE:
“The poorest county in America isn’t in Appalachia or the Deep South.”
—————————————————————————————–
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones
Stories collected by Alvin Schwartz
109 pages in paperback
ALSO WROTE:
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark
SORTA LIKE:
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark
FIRST LINE:
“The girl was late getting home for supper.”
————————————————————————————-
Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller
318 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Tropic of Capricorn, Black Spring
SORTA LIKE:
John Updike meets Jack Kerouac
FIRST LINE(S):
“I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.”
———————————————————————————
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
331 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Riding Lessons, Ape House
SORTA LIKE:
Moulin Rouge meets Dumbo
FIRST LINE:
“Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me and the fry cook.”
———————————————————————————
A Separate Peace
John Knowles
204 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Spreading Fires, Peace Breaks Out
SORTA LIKE:
The Catcher in the Rye meets Dead Poets Society
FIRST LINE:
“I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before.”
———————————————————————————————————
Seeing
José Saramago
307 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Blindness, Death with Interruptions
SORTA LIKE:
1984 meets Catch-22
FIRST LINE:
“Terrible voting weather, remarked the presiding officer of polling station fourteen as he snapped shut his soaked umbrella and took off the raincoat that had proved of little use to him during the breathless forty-meter dash from the place where he had parked his car to the door through which, heart pounding, he had just appeared.”
—————————————————————————————————-
Box 21
Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström
393 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
FIRST LINE:
“Extract from an accident & emergency primary assessment, Söder Hospital, Stockholm”
—————————————————————————————————-
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee
Sarah Silverman
240 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
Bossypants and I Drink for a Reason
FIRST LINE: “When I first selected myself to write the foreword for my book, I was flattered, and deeply moved.”
—————————————————————————————————-
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
146 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House
SORTA LIKE:
The Crucible meets Stephen King
FIRST LINE:
“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood.”
—————————————————————————————————–
The American Way of Death Revisited
Jessica Mitford
274 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Hons and Rebels, A Fine Old Conflict
SORTA LIKE:
Stiff meets Fast-Food Nation
FIRST LINE:
“When funeral directors have taxed me—which they have, and not infrequently—with being beastly about them in my book, I can affirm in good conscience that there is hardly an unkind word about them.”
———————————————————————————————–
The Ask
Sam Lipsyte
296 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Home Land, The Subject Steve
SORTA LIKE:
The Futurist meets Dear American Airlines
FIRST LINE:
“America, said Horace, the office temp, was a run-down and demented pimp.”
————————————————————————————————
Packing for Mars
Mary Roach
318 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
Stiff, Spook, Bonk
SORTA LIKE:
Bill Bryson meets Chelsea Handler
FIRST LINE:
“To the rocket scientist, you are a problem.”
——————————————————————————————-
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
259 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Doors of Perception, Point Counter Point
SORTA LIKE:
The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984
FIRST LINE:
“A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, Community, Identity, Stability.”
——————————————————————————————-
Home Safe
Elizabeth Berg
258 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Open House, The Last Time I Saw You
SORTA LIKE:
White Oleander meets Falling Man
FIRST LINE:
“One Saturday when she was nine years old, Helen Ames went into the basement, sat at the card table her mother used for folding laundry, and began writing.”
——————————————————————————————————————-
Between the Bridge and the River
Craig Ferguson
329 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
American on Purpose, I’ll Go T’foot of Our Stage
SORTA LIKE:
Sellevision meets The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God
FIRST LINE:
“Cloven-hoofed creatures passed this way.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman
269 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
n/a
SORTA LIKE:
The Wire, Season 5 meets Then We Came to the End
FIRST LINE:
“Lloyd shoves off the bedcovers and hurries to the front door in white underwear and black socks.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
Cognitive Surplus
Clay Shirky
213 pages (in hardback)
ALSO WROTE:
Here Comes Everybody
SORTA LIKE:
The Shallows, Bowling Alone
FIRST LINE:
“In the 1720s, London was busy getting drunk. Really drunk.”
—————————————————————————————————————-
By Nightfall
Michael Cunningham
238 pages (in hardcover)
ALSO WROTE:
The Hours, Flesh and Blood
SORTA LIKE:
Lulu Meets God and Doubts Himmeets Freedom
FIRST LINE:
“The Mistake is coming to stay for awhile.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
About A Boy
Nick Hornby
307 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
High Fidelity and Juliet, Naked
SORTA LIKE:
All other Nick Hornby books
FIRST LINE:
” ‘So, have you split up now?’ “
—————————————————————————————————————–
Ms. Hempel Chronicles
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
193 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Madeleine is Sleeping
SORTA LIKE:
Special Topics in Calamity Physics meets No One Belongs Here More Than You
FIRST LINE:
“Many of Ms. Hempel’s students were performing in the show that evening, but to her own secret disappointment, she would not be appearing.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
644 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
The Girl who Played with Fire, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
SORTA LIKE:
Silence of the Lambs meets The Firm
FIRST LINE:
“It happened every year, was almost a ritual.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
Beautiful Boy
David Sheff
331 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Game Over, China Dawn
SORTA LIKE:
The Night of the Gun meets The Glass Castle
FIRST LINE:
“‘Howdy Pop, God, I miss you guys so much.’”
—————————————————————————————————————-
Catch-22
Joseph Heller
463 (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Closing Time, Picture This
SORTA LIKE:
Fahrenheit 451 meets Stripes
FIRST LINE:
“It was love at first sight.”
—————————————————————————————————————–
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Diaz
340 pages (in paperback)
ALSO WROTE:
Drown
SORTA LIKE:
The Joy Luck Club meets Random Family
FIRST LINE:
“They say it came first from Africa, carried in the streams of the enslaved; that it was the death bane of the Tainos, uttered just as one world perished and another began; that it was a demon drawn into Creation through the nightmare door that was cracked open in the Antilles.”
