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In every issue of Bookmarks, readers send in a list of books that are favorites or ones they recommend to friends or fit a specific topic or genre. Take a look at their lists. Which ones have you read? Which ones did you add to your TBR? Are there other books you would include on their lists?

"The Books I Recommend Most Often" suggested by Jennifer Epolito, a teacher from Arizona, are titles Jennifer has recently recommended to students and adults. Here is the list:



Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher


"The Peculiar and the Epic" are books that Patty Templeton of Illinois adores. Her list includes:



The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March
Step Right Up! by Daniel P. Mannix
A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Of these, I've only read , all three of which I liked very much, and which was okay.

I've always planned to read by haven't gotten around to it yet. is one that I hadn't heard of until recently, but I recently added it to my TBR list because it sounds like it would be very good.

I have read half of Jennifer's list:


I'm glad to see Elsewhere on her list. It's a young adult novel, but satisfying for adults too. I read it a year or so ago, and thought it was a refreshing take on the afterlife.

I own and hope to get to it within the year. looks interesting and I've added it to my TBR after Jennifer's recommendation and also seeing another GR friend give it 5 stars.

I didn't fare so well with Patty's list. I have only read and . I probably won't read anything else on her list except for

I've read 6 on Jennifer's list:



I would read all of the others except for the Picolt book. I'm not really a fan even though I do read her from time to time.


I've only read 3 of Patty's:

and .

I won't read anything else on her list.

I didn't fair well on this survey of read books:
3 on Jennifer's: . I would like to read:

With Patty's list I have read two and eventually will read .

I did read and . This lengthy work by Glen David Gold is a well-written, great work of fiction, which is one of my favorites. Well worth the time and so enjoyable. I was so immersed in this great story and hated to see it end. I highly recommend this work of historical fiction....by far his best work. By the way, reader's trivia...he is married to Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones.

OK Cathy, you've piqued my interest in . I see it also has received favorable ratings from a few other GR friends.

I really enjoyed Carter Beats the Devil, too.