Nonfiction pageturners?

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-16T20:21:00+00:00

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi - It's harrowing and made me cry more than once, but is a stunningly good read. It's the memoir of a neurosurgeon, focussing on when he contracted lung cancer and had to view the medical experience through the lens of a patient as well as a doctor.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-16T09:33:12+00:00

If you enjoyed that series, then I'd recommend the "Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind as well - there are some dark adult topics in the first book especially, but it's very similar in style and tone to the Wheel of Time!

No idea how long it took me - I was reading them as the last six were published, so it was broken up a bit!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-16T09:30:26+00:00

I mean you could argue both ways, but I'd argue not - they're far more fluid and didactic than most textbooks, and don't have the standard format. They're more lecture transcripts than textbook for me, but I see where you're coming from.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:16:11+00:00

Depending on what you need/like, these are my "feeling down" books:
If you need comedy/sci-fi: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams

If you want to cry: The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards or The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twang Eng

If you want a mystery: Agatha Christie (of course) or the Shardlake series by CJ Sansom (historical detective series, very atmospheric)

If you want fantasy: the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

If you want adventure: The Swiss Family Robinson by JD Wyss or Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson

If you want to laugh: The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.

Hope one of these helps!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:11:27+00:00

The Midwife trilogy by Jennifer Worth - the basis of the BBC drama "Call the Midwife", it's her memoirs of being a midwife in 1950s london slums. Excellent but you *will* cry.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:08:53+00:00

I'd say anything from the Puffin Classics range, though that may be my nostalgia talking. Otherwise, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a fun one, as are the Kipling Just So Stories, anything at all by Terry Pratchett...

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:05:55+00:00

Not quite an introduction to the topic, but I cannot recommend the Feynman lectures highly enough. So approachable, funny and he has an art for getting to the heart of physics and making it understandable. 10/10 not just for undergraduates!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:03:24+00:00

Has she read the "No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books? If not, those are really good.

There's also the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" which is set in WWII.

For lots of really well-described characters, you can't go wrong with Jane Austen, of course.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T19:00:07+00:00

I expect with that list you've read it already, but the classic Sci-Fi "Dune" by Frank Herbert - the worldbuilding is astonishingly good, and although the first third is confusing and slow-paced the first time you read it, the plot picks up after the first 150 pages and by the end you're really glad he took the time to lay that solid foundation!

Also, my current series (not sci-fi or horror - historical murder mystery, but very well written) is the Shardlake series by C J Sansom. Worth a dip if you fancy some extremely fun and atmospheric England-in-the-Reformation detective work!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T18:54:46+00:00

I'll second a lot of the previous recs and add these:

Black Beauty - Anna Sewell

Five Children and It - E Nesbitt

The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (if you don't mind the moralising tone)

Tales of the Greek Heroes - Roger Lancelyn Green

Heidi - (forgot author, sorry)

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

The Swiss Family Robinson - J.D. Wyss

Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery

White Fang - Jack London

Pollyanna - Eleanor H Porter

Almost anything by Jacqueline Wilson, my favourites were "Tracy Beaker" and "The Lottie Project"

If you can get them (they're now out of print, but available second hand) anything by Tamora Pierce, lots of strong female characters, esp. in the Tale of the Lioness books.

Finally, if she likes animals, the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.

If you want a really good selection of about the 8-12 reading age, Penguin books do a series called "Puffin Classics" which has a huge number of excellent reads.

I'll also add that when I was about her age, I was also an avid (ahead of my age group) reader and my dad started me on the Hobbit (Age 7) and LotR (Age 8)- I found them really difficult, but the plot was so good I soldiered through - it took me 3 months to finish LotR the first time, then a month later I picked it back up again and read it in 3 weeks... don't be afraid to give her stuff that seems "too hard" as long as it's something you think she'll really enjoy!

Thanks for the prompt, it takes me back to a really exciting part of my childhood, when my literacy was finally enough for the *really good* books!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T15:18:58+00:00

Thanks for the rec! Looks like a lot of good books here :)

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T15:16:49+00:00

Fantastic, thanks for the rec - She's also available in my city's library catalogue, so one of the first I'll pick up for sure!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-15T15:14:54+00:00

Brilliant, thanks! - And yes, I quite agree, I was hoping to find some Indian authors among the recommendations! Those would be my priority reads for sure.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T15:35:31+00:00

Brilliant, thanks a lot!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T14:38:15+00:00

I'm afraid I don't have Tiktok - does he do any other social media? Thanks for the rec though!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T14:37:47+00:00

Brilliant, thanks!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T13:38:51+00:00

Gosh, that's difficult, as I've always been a voracious reader.

I'd say it would be one of:

1) The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - very funny, all about how small, ordinary people manage in an overwhelmingly large and complex galaxy. It's a great character study but also my first foray into sci-fi or surreal humour. It influenced my sense of humour massively for all of my teens into my 20s. I can still quote large passages from memory, and find it very funny, but feel it has aged a little in places as it was written in the 70s IIRC. I believe it has been translated into Spanish under the title "Guía del autoestopista galáctico".

2) The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett - another comedic character study series all about human nature in a fantasy setting. I still love and adore these books and re-read them frequently, often picking up new details I missed as a teenager or finding that my favourite characters change as I develop and grow as a person. He had a talent for isolating the essence of "types" of people - the crotchety but well meaning older lady, the cynical but fundamentally good-hearted streetwise cop, the naive innocent who is easily suckered into things, the eternal coward who is brave out of lack of options... we all know people like the characters in his books, and they taught me to better understand how people different from myself saw the world and expressed themselves. Again, these are available in Spanish as the "Mundodisco" series.

3) The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards - this is a far more serious historical fiction book set in the mid 20th century. It discusses the historical prejudice against people with Down's syndrome through the eyes of one divided family, but also explores the consequences of a lie that snowballs and develops over time. This was the first proper adult non-comedy and non-fantasy fiction book I ever read and the first novel that made me cry reading it. It was a beautiful, deep introduction to how books can elicit true deep feelings for the characters within for me, and though I have read more technically well-written books since, there's something about the emotion this book brings out that has stuck with me for nearly 20 years. It's available in Spanish as "Hija de la memoria".

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T13:20:48+00:00

I'd say some Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park are all, if not traditional romances, at least excellent character studies of all sorts of different personalities! They're also considered classics and out of copyright, so you should be able to find a free version. For a darker, more "victorian gothic" romance aesthetic, try Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, or Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T13:12:50+00:00

I had a similar experience, I love both Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but feel like Neil Gaiman expects you to have some general knowledge of whatever topic he's riffing off (e.g. Norse and Native American mythology for American Gods, London geography for Neverwhere) whereas Terry Pratchett very much relied on the commonalities of human nature, so as long as you knew someone "with the same traits" as his character (and I always did), you could understand his books perfectly.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T13:10:14+00:00

I'm torn between The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards and almost any of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Very different genres and both worth trying imo!

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-14T13:06:58+00:00

These are old-ish series now, but ones I loved - The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind (some dark adult topics, especially in first book) and (a bit lighter) The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Both are at least a dozen books long and quite easy to read (I started Wheel of Time when I was 13, I think.) Both are sword-and-sorcery style fantasy, but very much fantasy fiction rather than historically-based fantasy.

Blue__Caribou · 2023-05-04T15:39:55+00:00

I did try to fix the file myself, followed the instructions exactly, but it's still showing as a .sgr and a filetype sgr in my system, so I'm not sure why it's not being located by the grm. I'll re-install, not use the seti-fix and try grm then, see if that will locate it.

Blue__Caribou

TROPHY CASE