Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
Just like I did last year, I’m tweaking the bookish wishes prompt again because my TBR pile is still as large as ever. (Are they secretly magical? Why do they never seem to shrink much at all no matter how much you read?)
Instead of asking any of you to buy books for me, I’m asking for recommendations instead if you know of any titles that might match up to my bookish wishes below.
Wish #1: Humorous Stories of Any Length
I don’t know about all of you, but I still have a strong desire to read lighthearted material that will hopefully make me laugh.
Responses to this wish can be from any genre or era.
Here are some examples of humorous stories that I’ve loved:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #1) by Douglas Adams
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson
I Am America by Stephen Colbert
The sorts of short humorous stories about everyday life that writers like Mark Twain have written.
Wish #2: Stories About or From Where You Live
If you’re uncomfortable sharing the precise city you live in for privacy reasons, no worries. I will be just as happy to read stories about your region, state, province, territory, country, or continent depending on how specific you feel comfortable being.
I think reading stories set in real places is a wonderful way to get a feel for that area. Since I won’t be travelling anywhere special this summer, why not read about some of the spectacular places in our world instead?
I would prefer recommendations from the science fiction, fantasy, mystery, or young adult genres, but other genres are cool as well if you loved their writing style and think they’re a great representation of your culture or region.
Wish #3: Literary Ghost Stories
I love well-written, literary (or literary-ish) ghost stories. Send all of them to me. Ha!
Here are a few examples of what I mean:
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Wish #4: Nonfiction About Topics Other Than War, Pandemics, or Royalty
Those of you who have been reading my Top Ten Tuesday or other posts for a while might remember how much I love the nonfiction genre.
I am not interested in nonfiction about war, pandemics, or royalty. I am rarely into nonfiction about politics or religion. (Brief mentions of any of these topics are totally okay…just not entire books about them).
Anything else is fair game! Biographies, autobiographies, history, medicine, education, animals, science, social movements, food, social customs, and similar topics always pique my interest. I love learning about the pieces of life that often aren’t taught in school.
Wish #5: Beach Reads
I know the definition of the term beach read can differ depending on the reader.
When I use it, I’m referring to light, fluffy books that can help you pass the time while you’re at the beach and that do not require deep levels of thought in order to keep track of the plot and characters. My brain needs a little literary junk food this summer.
You’ll get bonus points if your suggestion also happens to be set on a beach, but this is definitely not a requirement. Any genre is fine for this one.
Wish #6: Anything Else You Think I Might LIke
Okay, I know this one is a bit of a tall order. If anyone reading this feels like they know my reading preferences well enough to give an unsolicited recommendation, by all means feel free to do so!
This is an excellent take on the prompt. My TBR is so large too!
For a Laugh Out Loud I would suggest Dial A For Aunties and Four Aunties and A Wedding. These books would also qualify for beach reads, however my beach read suggestion would be It Only Takes A Minute by Sasha Lane – set in Portugal.
For a ghost story The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell or The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St James.
I live in the UK so The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is set in a Residential Home in the UK. Not a great amount of detail about the place, but the story is excellent. Of course The Attic Child by Lola Jaye is set in London which is within a reasonable travelling distance from me!
Have a great week!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
So many recommendations! Thank you, Emily. This is fantastic. Have a lovely week.
Nice topic choice! I might have to try this to get some fresh recs sometime.
For the ghost story question, I’d recommend Mexican Gothic (it doesn’t have ghosts but very much has that haunted manor house vibe) and checking out Laura Purcell’s books if you haven’t already. Purcell’s books are all fairy spooky/ unsettling but The Silent Companions would definitely give you that ghost story hit.
I hope you do borrow this idea sometime, Louise! 🙂
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve heard great things about Mexican Gothic.
Brilliant twist to the topic, Lydia, I absolutely love it.
My area is unfortunately not very forthcoming. I will have to see whether I find anything worth mentioning. The only author I know who didn’t live far from us is Erich-Maria Remarque who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front but that is about WWI and didn’t take place near us. I really should investigate. Thanks for the idea.
And thanks for visiting my TTT this week.
Thanks, Marianne!
I’ve never read All Quiet on the Western Front, but I’m looking it up now. 🙂
Oh, I love this topic!
Some great non-fiction that I’ve enjoyed are: Man Enough by Baldoni, Greenlights by McConaughey, & Sorry, I’m late, I didn’t want to come by Pan.
Thank you very much. Those recommendations sound awesome.
I have a list on goodreads of books that made me laugh — maybe one of them will catch your attention!
I have some posts on my favorite nonfiction titles: part 1, and part 2.
And finally, the motherload for you, I have a post of books that made me laugh, including several nonfiction titles. xD
I also just finished The Woman In The Library which is set in the Boston Public Library and area, and it has SOOO many details about the area that it’s almost like a travel book as well as a murder mystery. Maybe that can be a little slice of travel!
Oh, wow, that’s a lot of recommendations. Thank you very much. They look right up my alley. 🙂
Well, I did a Free Online Fiction post today for TTT, so that might fit your final category there. (And some of them might be humorous as well; I would mostly call them amusing instead of humorous but your mileage may vary.)
As to #2: Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series is one of the best descriptions of San Francisco (and the surrounding area) that I have seen in fiction. I’ve lived in the SF Bay Area most of my life, and while it’s often used as a setting it’s not always done well.
And for #4: I recently read Katie Mack’s The End to Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) and it was a really amusing and often humorous read. It’s taking about the end of the universe, but it’s really not a depressing book and doesn’t discuss politics much at all (because no matter how powerful our politicians think they are, on the universe’s scale they don’t have much impact).
Very nice!
Thank you for all of your recommendations.
These are all great wishes. I hope some make it into your hands.
Thank you!
Great twist to the prompt! Earlier this year I enjoyed this cosy fantasy novel called Legends & Lattes. I don’t read a lot of NF but I really enjoyed Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come by Jessica Pan, The Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, Born A Crime by Trevor Noah, and Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. I hope you get some great recommendations 🙂
Thank you. They sound great.
How can I resist an opportunity to give you some recommendations by Welsh authors that are set in Wales????
So for a ghost story that plays on some of the most famous of Welsh myths, I suggest Ghostbird by Carole Lovekin https://bookertalk.com/ghostbird-by-carole-lovekin-bookreview-waleswrites/
For a beach story that has a mystery, try The Beach House by Beverley Jones. I get double brownie points for this because it has two beach settings – one in Wales and one in Oregon https://bookertalk.com/the-beach-house-by-beverley-jones-can-you-hide-from-the-past/
Ooh, these look good. Thank you!
One book I read recently that was very humorous and can be counted as a beach read it Out of the Clear Blue Sky by Kristan Higgins. I love your topic today!
Thank you very much! I’m looking that book up now.
I like how you tweaked the prompt this week.
I love cartoon collections for your humorous wishlist.
Thank you! Yes, cartoon collections are wonderful.
A few non-fiction reads you may enjoy:
As You Wish by Carey Elwes
The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived by Allan Lazar
Yes Man by Danny Wallace (also has a bit of humor to it)
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J Lee
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/books-i-wish-i-could-read-now/
Yay! Thank you.
What a great topic! It’s always easy for me to find books set where I live, since I live in the suburbs of NYC, but as far as books that made me laugh, the most recent was Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. It’s a fantasy but was surprisingly humorous!
What a cool place to live.
I’m looking that book up now.
I love Calvin & Hobbes. And I’d like to find more humorous SF in the vein of Adams as well. Have you ever read The Witches of Karres? It’s older but James schmitz was a well known SF author back in the day, and it has a light whimsical touch you might enjoy.
I also can’t recommend A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers enough (I don’t remember if you’ve read it- apologies if you have).
No, I haven’t read either of those books yet. Now I want to, though, so thanks!
I continue to try to comment on your posts, by the way. Hopefully, I’ll be able to again soon. Silly blogger comment software. 🙂
Oh no did it not show up? Gah I’ve been having all KINDS of trouble with comments going to spam. I’ll look. And thank you for trying! 🙂
You’re welcome. I’ll keep trying!
I love your twist on the topic, though I’m having an absolute blackout when it comes to recommendations… Hmmm, some reads that made me laugh recently were Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall and The Switch by Beth O’Leary (though neither are technically humor, more romance/contemporary). A beach read I’d recommend would be Beach Read by Emily Henry or Shipped by Angie Hockman (both romances). I hope you’ll get plenty of great recommendations you’ll end up loving!
Aww, thanks! Those sound good.
one of my favorite nonfictions ever is The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy. I laughed so much while reading this that after I finished, I immediately wanted to re read it.
Nice! It sounds good.
Oh, I love this. I would recommend Denise William’s The Fastest Way to Fall, Alexis Daria’s You Had Me at Hola, and Claire Kann’s The Romantic Agenda for the perfect beach read.
Yay! Thank you.
So many greats! 🙂
Check out my Bookish Wishes
🙂
I’m pretty sure you’ve hit the nail on the head and TBRs are secretly multiplying when we’re not looking. xD
Oh my gosh, your humorous stories sound exactly like the ones I love! If you haven’t read Terry Pratchett yet, I highly recommend giving him a try, and start with the Death Trilogy (Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music).
I’d also recommend Fredrick Backman, if you haven’t read his work. He’s more of a comedy drama author, but I loved My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry and Anxious People (which starts slow but is really worth it if you push through the beginning).
Another really good series is The Frost Files by Jackson Ford. Comedic urban fantasy with superpowers and lots of action.
Oh! And if you want something nonfiction like Colbert’s book, I highly recommend You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin. I especially recommend the audiobook. Amber and her sister do the audiobook themselves and it’s amazing!
OMG, that’s so many recommendations. Thank you so much!
I love your twist on this week’s prompt. I’ll be checking back for some of the same recs!
Thank you! I hope you find lots of great recommendations.
I really like your take on the prompt. As far as recommendations, I have a few for you:
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe is a very funny and entertaining read. Plus, you learn some physics along the way.
Everneath by Brodi Ashton is set in the same state I live, which is Utah. It’s not set in the same city, but it’s close.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake is a fun YA ghost story. It’s well-written and I really enjoyed the story.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig just because it was the most profound reading experience I’ve ever had.
Thank you! And what great recommendations. I’m checking my local library now to see which titles they may have.
My TBR is also massive. This is my 4th year of doing a weekly Tackling the TBR challenge. I post on the 7th, 14, 21st, and last day of the month if you are ever interested in giving it a try! My TBR was well over 5,000 books. I am under 2,500 now. Still a long way to go!
As for non-fiction, that is my jam all the way. I love history, especially medieval history, as well as Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England. Have you read The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England, by Dan Jones? It will have some military history of course, but the focus is on the family and their 300 year reign.
I also really liked The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James, though was not as into The Book of Cold Cases, which came out recently.
There’s also an author I discovered recently named Jaime Jo Wright, and she’s won the Daphne du Maurier award for her debut, The House on Foster Hill. Her books are technically Christian fiction because they are published by Bethany House, but aren’t completely, if that makes sense. There is talk of God and a Creator, and some characters are preachers or pastors, but the focus of each of her books is the lives of two women, separated by decades. There’s a crime (usually murder) and/or something paranormal-ish (that usually ends up not being paranormal). Her books are so atmospheric and gothic-y at times, and full of suspense. I have plowed through them all in just two weeks. She has several now and I have really loved them all, but I recommend The Souls of Lost Lake, The Curse of Misty Wayfair, The House on Foster Hill (which I am reading at the moment and not done with yet, but really enjoying), The Haunting of Bonaventure Circus, and Echoes Among the Stones. I also read On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor and The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond, which I did not love nearly as much, but still enjoyed.
Hope these recommendations can help and that you find at least one book among them that you like!
What an interesting idea! I’m very tempted to give that a try for sure.
I’m looking those books up now. Thank you for the recommendations.
here is the link to my latest and obviously you can display the info however you want, if you decide to give it a try. It’s been super helpful for me to see how many books I really am adding to my TBR and made me think a lot about whether or not I really need to read a certain book, if I have already read 12 others on the same subject.
https://allthebookblognamesaretaken.blogspot.com/2022/06/tackling-tbr-weeks-23-and-24-june-8.html
I hope you like any of the Wright books. I was cautious at first because I feel like some books labeled as Christian fiction get very preachy and inauthentic because of the preachiness. But Wright does a really great job with the conversations feeling natural and not forced.
Thanks again! Yeah, I’m pretty wary of that genre, too, but those books do sound good.
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis is a sci-fi YA set in the Netherlands which does not happy very often with books in English. Thomas Olde Heuvelt moved the Dutch setting to an American one when his book got translated. I thought that was a shame.
They definitely shouldn’t have changed the setting.
I know our reading interests are not super similar so I went looking at books I have read that I thought you might like based on what I know of your reading 😉 Here are a few suggestions: The Polygamist’s Daughter by Anna Lebaron; A Girl’s Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate (fluff, beach read, humorous), I don’t think you’re a huge romance person, but another beach read/humorous author is Emma St. Clair. And, Come Back to Me by Jody Hedlund (time-travel, Science fiction).
Thank you for all of those suggestions. I appreciate them. No, I’m not into romance too often, but I will look up those ideas as well.
Good interesting idea this week! I’m a librarian and I read a lot of nonfiction. If you give me an area of interest I’m sure I can help you find something very readable in that area.
I’d forgotten you were a librarian!
Could you recommend any nonfiction about African or South America? So much of what I find is about North America and Europe. I’d like to expand my horizons.
I love Calvin and Hobbes. Have you ever tried reading the Peanuts comics? I really those too.
Nonficton-
The Psychopath Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed are both really fascinating.
I have one that I still need to read called Talking to Strangers.
-Lauren
I’ve read random Peanuts comic strips here and there, but I’ve never read them methodically. That’s a great idea.
I’m looking up the rest of your recommendations, too. Thank you.
If you like ghost stories and Simone St. James, you might like her last two novels, The Sun Down Motel and The Book of Cold Cases. Those both have a supernatural vibe.
Nice! I’m looking them up now. Thank you.
Wow – way to tweak the theme and to EXCELLENT effect! I don’t read a ton of nonfiction, but I’ve read a few that I recommend wholeheartedly. Open by Andre Agassi is an excellent insider view of tennis that I didn’t know I needed. Born a Crime, Trevor Noah, great window into such a different culture and upbringing. Stranger in the Woods: the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel; and I’ll end with Winterdance, the true story of a man who decided to try the Iditarod
Fantasy: Ninth House by Bardugo and 10000 Doors of January were a couple of my recent faves. Firekeepers Daughter is an excellent indigenous people story, quasi YA; oh, and Harry’s Trees is excellent general fiction, a touch of magical realism, emotional. Happy Reading. I’ve taken notes on the many suggestions given by others. What a great way to get some fresh new ideas about what to read.
Thank you very much! I’m looking up all of these titles now.
I’ll be browsing the comments for beach read recs. After several heavier reads, I’m definitely in the mood for something lighter.
Woohoo! I hope you found something right up your alley.
What an awesome twist on the theme! I love this idea. 😀 Have you read the Finlay Donovan books? Those definitely made me laugh a LOT!
Thank you. No, I haven’t read his books yet, but I’m checking them out now.
Love your take on this post! I just finished Geekerella this morning and I think it would be a great beach read, it’s a very geeky romance
Thanks! I’m looking that one up right now.
My recommendations for humorous would be My Lady Jane, for set where I live I love Sweet Home Alaska by Carol Estby Dagg and The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, and my non-fiction (from someone who doesn’t like non-fiction often) is The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede. It’s a really heartwarming collection of stories from the plane passengers stranded on Newfoundland during 9/11 and the locals who hosted them and how they formed lifelong friendships during the middle of the tragedy.
Awesome. Thank you very much.
I read The Day the World Came to Town a few years ago and really liked it. I’ll look up the rest!