Monday, July 15, 2013

Books & Cooks

Some of the books from Books & Cooks



A good book has no ending.  ~R.D. Cumming

Seven years ago Paul and I started a book/dinner club we aptly named Books & Cooks. Once a month we get together with a diverse group of friends and family to discuss our recent pick over dinner. This time together has become very special to me as we agree, disagree, debate, laugh (a lot!), cry (a little), and share our perspectives with each other. As is often the case with great conversations, one subject leads to another and sometimes we end the night with barely a nod to the book we’ve read. Other times we could go on for days discussing the book, never running out of things to say.

I thought it would be fun to share the books we’ve read with you. I know I’ve forgotten a few, but here are the ones I remember.

Please feel free to suggest ones we should add to our list!

1.    A Drinking Life by Peter Hamil
2.    All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remaque
3.    American Assassin by Vince Flynn
4.    An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
5.    Away by Amy Bloom
6.    Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
7.    Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn
8.    Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
9.    Defending Jacob by William Landay
10.Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
11.Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
12.Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
13.Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo
14.Inferno by Dan Brown
15.Ireland by Frank Delaney
16.Life of Pi by Yann Martel
17.Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
18.Look Again by Lisa Scottoline
19.Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
20.Manhunt The Search for Lincoln’s Killer by James Swanson
21.Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
22.Mephisto by Tess Gerritson
23.Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
24.My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme
25.My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
26.Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
27.Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
28.Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
29.The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
30.The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness by Joel Ben Izzy
31.The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
32.The Cave by Jose Saramago
33.The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
34.The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jeremy Leggatt
35.The Gilder by Kathryn Kay
36.The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow
37.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
38.The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
39.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by
40.The Help by Kathryn Stockett
41.The Keeper’s Son by Homer Hickam
42.The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
43.The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant
44.The Measure of a Man by Sydney Poitier
45.The Naked Now by Fr. Richard Rohr
46.The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
47.The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
48.The Road by Cormac McCarthy
49.The Secret Life of Bees By Sue Monk Kidd
50.The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
51.The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
52.The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
53.The Time of our Lives by Tom Brokaw
54.The Widow’s War by Sally Gunning
55.Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
56.Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
57.Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut
58.Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig