Top Ten Tuesday - Books Recommended to Me

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and The Bookish


This Week's Prompt: Books I'm So Happy Were Recommended To Me (all those books you probably wouldn't have picked up without a good recommendation)

This is going to be a bit haphazard, since I often read a greater quantity and more eclectically than most people around me.

Also, I'm not sure that "never would have picked up" applies to most of these. Most times when I read a book I "never would have picked up" it turns out... that I shouldn't have picked it up. These are more like, "might not have noticed/gotten around to soon without a good recommendation."


1: The Warrior's Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold  This is a good example, I probably would have gotten to these eventually, but I started reading them when I did because a friend at one of my jobs in 2004 saw me reading a Honor Harrington book and suggested the Miles Vorkosigan books. Now they're one of my all time favorite series. Thanks!

2: The Black Company, Glen Cook (review) I love what I've read of this series so far, and I thank the perceptive friends who recommended them!

3: The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King (review) If I'm remembering right, this book was recommended to me by two different people, in two different cities, within about two weeks. I promptly devoured the entire series.

4: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez. One of a very small number of books that my husband read before me. I'm glad I read it, even though I found a lot of the middle dead boring.

5: Death Gate Cycle, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I had read the first one but been unable to get into the second when a friend in college enthused about them. So I went back and plugged through the first bit, and ended up quite enjoying the series by the end. (You'll see a lot of that 'going back to books' on this list.)

6: Harry Potter, JK Rowling. I hated the first one when I tried to read it in 1999. I saw and enjoyed the first film, and possibly the second? I don't recall... before I went back to pick up the series. I finally read 1-5 in the summer of 2003, because I was surrounded by other summer interns who were super excited about book 5.

7: The Dark Tower, Stephen King. I should actually expand this one a bit; I don't remember whether this was so much one recommendation as a growing sense that most people I knew had read and loved something by King and that Dark Tower would be the best place for me to start. All those people were right. That led to reading and loving many of King's books, when I had previously avoided them.

8: Sandman, Neil Gaiman. Like many college women, I was happily seduced to the world of graphic novels when someone (my then-boyfriend, now husband) placed these books in my hands.

9: Mouse Guard, David Petersen. (review) Thanks, staff of Cosmic Comics (RIP). The recommendation notice caught my eye and then the art drew me in, and I've bought every issue since then.

10: Avengers Academy, Christos Gage. (first profiled in this Comics Briefly) Thanks, Three Chicks Review Comics Podcast! I don't agree with everything you say, and your episodes can get a little long-winded, but without your heartfelt recommendation I might not be reading this great book.


Whew! I made it to ten without subverting the theme! It was a close one, I also have a list of books that I kinda wish hadn't been recommended to me... ;)