Casual Readers: 2013

Top 10 Thankful Books

We asked our group members to tell us about books that were sincerely life changing.

This is our list of special reads that led us to experience true thankfulness!

You are welcome to also read the personal stories behind these choices here.

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

Top 10 Books Recommended for Teens

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

1984 by George Orwell

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Back on Track: Diary of a Street Kid by Margaret Clark

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

Top 10 Covers We Wish We Could Redesign

We could only come up with five...

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

Each month, Casual Readers group members choose our primary group read via a poll. This month, it was a tie! We couldn't choose one over the other so decided to give everyone the chance to read them BOTH.

The December primary group reads are...

...The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman & The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

We will also still be reading a secondary series selection in December.

The Art of Seducing A Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper is the second book in the Naked Werewolf series.

We are currently reading the first book for November and will be reading the third book of the series in January.

Caturday #4

“I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.” ― Edgar Allan Poe

April's Approbation

One of our group members and beloved moderators, April, recommends Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk for this week's Throwback Thursday.

She gave it FOUR STARS but labels it as a book worthy of a re-read, especially if you enjoy the weird.

She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists.

Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look.

The narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search of a brand-new past, present and future.

Goodreads Choice Awards: Best Books of 2013

Choose the best books of the year in the Goodreads Choice Awards, the only major book awards decided by the readers. Support your favorites by voting in all three rounds!

Categories:

Fiction, Mystery & Thriller, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Horror, Memoir & Autobiography, History & Biography, Non-fiction, Food & Cookbooks, Humor, Graphic Novels & Comics, Poetry, Debut Goodreads Author, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction, Middle Grade & Children's, Picture Books

Opening Round:

CAST YOUR VOTE

Top 10 Sequels We Can't Wait To Get Our Hands On

Here are our top ten (in no particular order) plus five bonus reads! We got a little carried away.

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

The Other Amber's Throwback

This Throwback Thursday was nominated by Amber.

She recommends Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh as a FIVE STAR read for creatively telling the story of three family generations in one coal mining town.

Bakerton is a community of company houses and church festivals, of union squabbles and firemen's parades. Its neighborhoods include Little Italy, Swedetown, and Polish Hill. For its tight-knit citizens -- and the five children of the Novak family -- the 1940s will be a decade of excitement, tragedy, and stunning change. Baker Towers is a family saga and a love story, a hymn to a time and place long gone, to America's industrial past, and to the men and women we now call the Greatest Generation. It is a feat of imagination from an extraordinary voice in American fiction, a writer of enormous power and skill.

November Group Read: ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

Casual Readers selected All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill for our primary monthly group read in November.

Join us for another fun-filled discussion.

Top 10 Scariest Book Covers

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Mass Digestion by Jesse Wheeler

Cthulhurotica by Various Authors

Substitute Creature by Charles Gilman

Hatched by Jason R. Davis

It by Stephen King

Hellraiser by Clive Barker

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

All Your Words Are Belong To Us

It's almost time for another NaNoWriMo! Are you ready?

You can join our event & find support in our group forum.

Sima's Selection

Sima gave American Gods by Neil Gaiman FIVE STARS.

She says, "Just thinking about it makes me want to re-read it ASAP."

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

We seem to have a lot of Gaiman fans in the group!

Top 10 Unusual Character Names

Ford Perfect, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Wellington Books, Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
Millon de Floss, Thursday Next
Veruca Salt, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games
Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry Potter
Daenerys Targaryen, A Song of Ice and Fire
Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit

Comment to finish our list? We came up short this week!

Each week, The Broke and Bookish inspires a Top 10 Tuesday list.

Our responses are group member generated.

Caturday #3

“The cat that Prim got hates me, I think partly because I tried to drown it.”

― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Project J

Today's throwback was suggested by yet another (former) group member, J.

She gave it FIVE STARS. If you haven't picked up this trilogy yet, it is a must read!

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.

Intrigued by this member's selection? Find out more about her here.