It's Time for the (2nd) Annual Readers' Recs

It's been a little over a year since we had our 1st Readers' Recs.  These are what you would expect them to be - recommendations of our readers' favorite books.  So why are we doing it again, you might ask? There are 3 reasons:

1.  We have new followers since September of 2015.  Maybe they would like to give us some of their favorite books of all-time.
2.  There are possibly a few readers that were followers back in September 2015 who simply were too busy to recommend (why else would they have not done it?) and have just been champing at the bit to have another go.
3.  And maybe some of those who WERE followers and DID recommend books last September have come up with some new recs.

So, here is what I wrote on 9/9/15:

You know, we all like to get book recommendations.  I know I do.  Many of my favorites have come via recs from friends and social media connections.  So what I would like to do is come up with a list of great recommendations for everybody.  If you feel up to it (aka if you care), can you give us your top 3 books all-time?  Let's see what we can put out there. Take a week and either list them on this blog post or email me directly at lloydrrussell@gmail.com.  And although I'm sure you've seen my top 3 before, here they are again:

Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
The Source - James Michener
Shogun - James Clavell

And P.S.  If you want to give us 1, 2, 4, or 5, feel free.

The list below, not surprisingly, is what we all came up with last year. Let's see what we get this time.

Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett - 6
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo - 2
Beach Music, Pat Conroy - 2
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
1984, George Orwell
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Shogun, James Clavell
The Source, James Michener
Will Grayson, Will Grayson, David Levithan & John Green
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh (graphic book)
Arcadia, Lauren Groff
The Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Drop City, T.C. Boyle
San Miguel, T.C. Boyle
The Road to Wellness, T.C. Boyle
Crimson Petal and the White, Michael Faber
The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
The Other Boleyn Girl, Philippa Gregory
Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
Winds of War, Herman Wouk
Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield
First Blood, David Morrell
The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown
The Tin Drum, Gunther Glass
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Cider House Rules, John Irving
A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
Fellowship of the Ring trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
Shadows of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Collapse, Jared Diamond
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Not Me, Michael Lavigne
11/22/63, Stephen King
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Inferno, Dan Brown
Fifty Shades of Greg, E.L. James
A Thousand Names for Joy, Byron Katie
Nothing Real Can Be Threatened, Tara Singh
The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
Auto Biography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda
Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Iron House, John Hart
Cancer Ward, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck