<p>Based on comments by others, here is my revised list:</p>
<ol>
<li>Chemistry of Tears</li>
<li>Glass Room</li>
<li>How It All Began</li>
<li>Shine Shine Shine</li>
</ol>
<p>(quietly sitting in the corner)</p>
<p>^ Nooooooo! Stand up and be counted! 
:)</p>
<p>(at least tell us what you absolutely wouldn’t read)</p>
<p>Revised list - alphabetical order. I could and would be happy with any - in other words, not ranked according to preference. ;)</p>
<p>*The Chemistry of Tears</p>
<p>How It All Began</p>
<p>Shine Shine Shine*</p>
<p>I thought I should comment on why I posted “I’m less enthused about The Glass Room and have reservations about Once Upon a River, though I would read either if chosen.” I have nothing against either book; actually both books sound good. I think for me it boils down to a matter of timing: The Glass Room has a 2009 publication date and a longer page count while the subject matter of Once Upon a River might not be best suited to the holidays - some concern about the rape and level of violence. Though why I have any reservations, I don’t know: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al, didn’t bother me.</p>
<p>Good choices all around. I’ll can’t wait to see what’s chosen. As always, Mary, let us know your rankings.</p>
<p>Come on Psychmom.
Hey if you share, maybe we can get Mary13 to name her secret favorite books. I’ll even ply her with virtual cocktail, or glass of wine. (Even a bottle if needed)</p>
<p>I’ll share that I’m now reading Sarah Vowells, ** Unfamiliar Fishes **, which happens to be about the history of Hawaii, and I had no idea when I sampled it.<br>
Just felt in the mood for a little Sarah Vowell humor and lightness, after David Mitchell. </p>
<p>To my surprise this book is about the history of Hawaii, the natives, the missionairies, and now I’m reading about the whaling industry early 1800s.
If History had been taught in high school the way Sarah Vowell tells it, I would have learned so much more. Loved her book “Assassination Vacation”. </p>
<p>Here is an example (I share this because it is a beautiful blue sky fall day in the East).
</p>
<p>And, in the way that all things are seeming connected Sarah talks about ** RUFUS ** Anderson, who played a crucial role in spreading Christianity to Hawaii and around the world. I wondered where Mitchell came up with the name Rufus!
And, so it goes …</p>
<p>I highly recommend this book, [Unfamiliar</a> Fishes: Sarah Vowell: 9781594485640: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/159448564X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1350154373&sr=8-3&keywords=sarah+vowell]Unfamiliar”>http://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/159448564X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1350154373&sr=8-3&keywords=sarah+vowell)</p>
<p>^After plowing resolutely through Michener’s Hawaii in something like the eighth grade, I thought I had learned enough about Hawaiian missionaries to last a lifetime.</p>
<p>But maybe not. Unfamiliar Fishes sounds good, SJCM.</p>
<p>(Also looking at the beautiful blue sky in southern NJ.)</p>
<p>You’ve all made things easier by clearly indicating that the list is narrowed down to these four choices:</p>
<p>The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (406 pp)
Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer (320 pp)
The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey (240 pp)
How it All Began by Penelope Lively (240 pp)</p>
<p>I would rather not read The Chemistry of Tears for a reason that will sound irrational: I am optimistic about us reading Possession in February, and although those of you in the know will probably tell me that the books are very, very different, they both concern researchers who become consumed with the journals left behind by characters from the 19th century, and who develop emotional connections to these long-dead figures while puzzling out the mysteries of the past. </p>
<p>I would prefer to read Possession with you first, and then move on to The Chemistry of Tears later to see if Peter Carey might or might not have been influenced by A.S. Byatt. Those of you who have read both books already will probably think I’m nuts, but…hmmm, no “but”…you’re probably right. </p>
<p>So my three are:</p>
<p>1) The Glass Room
2) Shine Shine Shine
3) How it All Began</p>
<p>The Glass Room is on everybody’s top three list, except for ignatius’. SouthJerseyChessMom, could you try plying her with that bottle of wine?</p>
<p>^^^ Are you saying that The Glass Room will be the Dec. choice? No need to ply me with wine. I’ll read The Glass Room. </p>
<p>Now Mary … did you really think we would let this go: "I have favorite books that Im not going to even tell you people about for fear the response will be a polite Seriously?</p>
<p>I can’t wait to say “seriously” 
(Please note that I admitted to reading - and not hating* - the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Nothing you post will earn as much of a “seriously” as that. <em>Understand that “not hating” falls in a category far below the listing of favorite books.</em>)</p>
<p>Yeah, Mary, I’m curious too. Fess up! I mean, when you said that, the first thing I thought was “Jacqueline Susann”? :D</p>
<p>I’ll admit that I read “Valley of the Dolls” when it first came out. I’ll probably give Fifty Shades a try once everyone is tired of it and library copies and/or cheapo used copies are floating around everywhere.</p>
<p>I’ve also read every single Harry Potter so that I could talk about them with my kids. They were uneven, I thought; I found a couple of them to be a slog.</p>
<p>ignatius - You should have waited for the wine before agreeing to the book.</p>
<p>I bet we all have a book or two on the “do not tell” list.</p>
<p>^What? Now we’re playing truth or dare? do I have to reveal that shelf of early Stephen King novels?</p>
<p>I mostly lurk here, but had to pop in to say I positively detested The Chemistry of Tears. And “detest” is not a term I use very often! I’m almost done with Telegraph Avenue, and while I’m a Chabon fan, I don’t think his stuff is good book club fodder, so it dropped off the list appropriately. I just got a notice that Shine Shine Shine is waiting for me at the library, so the timing for that would be perfect!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL, that’s not what I meant, although I confess that I have indulged in my share of beach reads. </p>
<p>No, what I meant was that I don’t like to recommend books because afterward, I’ll hear (or be afraid that I’ll hear) that the book was "too <a href=“fill%20in%20the%20blank”>u</a>”—too long, too violent, too boring, too depressing, too improbable…too something or other. Or the worst feedback of all, “It was okay.” But I realize that the worth of a book is subjective…sometimes a certain book will find you at just the right moment, work itself into your psyche, and stay there for a long, long time.</p>
<p>Some of my favorite books are everybody’s favorites. Count me among the thousands who would like to sit on the porch with Atticus Finch or dance with Mr. Darcy. Here are a few others that I’ve read and re-read:</p>
<p>Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry</p>
<p>And here are some that are impossible to “love” because they contain such horrors, but deserve a mention because after I was done, I couldn’t get them out of my head, as hard as I tried:</p>
<p>The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Atonement by Ian McEwan
A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan</p>
<p>I don’t recommend any of the above, got that? Just giving you a peek into my possibly twisted brain.</p>
<p>NJTheatreMOM, I made it through the first three Harry Potter books, but no further. My heart belongs to the Oz books and the Chronicles of Narnia.</p>
<p>So come on, everybody…let me hear your favorites.</p>
<p>(ignatius, I can hear you now: “Mary, The Road? Seriously?”)</p>
<p>MommaJ, thank you for posting—and thank goodness we eliminated The Chemistry of Tears! </p>
<p>Unless I hear some objections, I believe we’re headed toward The Glass Room for December, as on average, it ranked just slightly higher than Shine Shine Shine on most of our top three lists. Have you read The Glass Room? Would you join us for that?</p>
<p>^Haven’t attempted The Road, but S was supposed to read Blood Meridian senior year of hs and (despite being a voracious reader) he couldn’t get through it. I read about 5 pages and gave up, so I couldn’t criticize him for not finishing it (everyone has their limits, right?).</p>
<p>I really am a horror genre fan, but it’s amazingly hard to do good horror fiction.</p>
<p>True confessions…I say I don’t like science fiction much, but for some reason I’m sort of obsessed with Arthur C Clarke’s “Childhood’s End.” Once every few years, I find myself picking up my dog-eared old paperback of it and reading it again.</p>
<p>For a while during the 80s, I became intrigued by Whitley Strieber’s UFO books, and the occasional cheesy New Age title like “Celestine Prophecy” or near-death experience books like “Embraced by the Light.”</p>
<p>I know…I know…</p>
<p>I don’t read many books more than once, but I have read “100 Years of Solitude” twice and expect to read it again some day. I used to think that this was fairly admirable …until I mentioned it not long ago on the CC best books thread and the only person who responded made it clear how much they hated the book.</p>
<p>Mary, I can understand why you love “Cold Mountain.” I thought the sections of that book that were about the women working together on the farm were utterly sublime.</p>
<p>And I have such affection for some of Larry McMurtry’s very early novels that I read years and years ago that I kind of want to revisit them and see if they would strike me as equally wonderful the second time around.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the The Glass Room and would be delighted to join you! (I don’t know how to italicize titles–can someone give me the secret?)</p>
<p>@Mary13, I did truly “love” both The Road and Atonement, do recommend them to others, and agree that they have a way of haunting you. I actually read The Road in a single sitting, deep into the night, curled in an easy chair when everyone else was asleep, literally unable to put it down (probably didn’t even stop to use the bathroom), which made the experience all the more intense. By the time I finally finished and went to bed, I felt I was returning from a long journey. Since you put A Prayer for the Dying in the same list with The Road and Atonement, I’ll have to get to that one soon.</p>
<p>MommaJ, to put something in italics, do the following, but leave out the spaces:</p>
<p>[ i ] Title [ /i ]</p>
<p>(The bracket signs should be right up against the symbols inside the brackets and right up against the first and last letters of the title, with no spaces.)</p>
<p>MommaJ, A Prayer for the Dying is written in the second person, present tense, which makes some people put it down the minute they pick it up. But once you get into the rhythm, it works—and it’s chilling. The quote from the New York Times Book Review on the back of my copy Is, “A fine, terse novel about the circumstantial nature of evil and the terrible fragility of man.” </p>
<p>My husband and older kids and I passed around The Road one cold, dreary winter. It made for a weird mood in the house, but gave us plenty to talk about—as well as an appreciation for canned goods. </p>
<p>So glad you’ll be joining us for The Glass Room! </p>
<p>Just a final check—we’re all okay with that selection, right?</p>
<p>^Totally okay…this had actually been somewhere on my list of books possibly to try someday, and now I’m getting psyched about it.</p>