MJ’s Comments (group member since May 23, 2008)

MJ’s comments from the The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List group.

GLITZ AND GLAMOUR: FASHION FURS AND FAME

CLASSICS
Deceptions by Judith Michael
Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins
Lace by Shirley Conran
The Rich Shall Inherit by Elizabeth Adler
Scruples by Judith Krantz
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles by Dominic Dunne
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

MORE GREAT READS
Adored by Tilly Bagshawe
Too Damn Rich By Judith Gould

WOMEN'S FICTION: BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN

CLASSICS
Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Once in a Lifetime by Danielle Steel
The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillian
A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford

MORE GREAT READS
The Cotton Queen by Pamela Morsi
The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodrigues
The First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith
Flight Lessons Club by Pataricia Gaffney
Follow the Stars Home Club by Luanne Rice
Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah
The Ocean Between Us by Susan Wiggs
A Piece of Heaven by Barbara Sammuel
The Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch by Haywood Smith
The Rose Revived by Katie Fforde
A Simple Gift by Karyn Witmer
Since Your Leaving Anyway, Take Out the Trash by Dixie Cash
6 Rainier Dr. by Debbie Macomber
Summer I Dared by Barbara Delinsky
Sweetgrass by Mary Alice Monroe

CHICK LIT: LOOKING FOR MR. RIGHT NOW

CLASSICS
Bridget's Jones Diary by Helen Fielding
The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks

MORE GREAT READS
Always the Bridesmaid by Whitney Lyles
American Idle by Alesia Holliday
Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman
Bergdorf Blondes
Bookends by Jane Green
Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
Calendar Girl by Naomi Neale
Charmed and Dangerous by Candace Havens
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
Do Me, Do my Roots by Eileen Rendahl
The Dominant Blonde by Alisa Kwitney
Fashionably Late by Beth Kendrick
Frog Prince by Lane Porter
Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Men I've Dated by Shane Bolks
L.A. Woman by Cathy Yardley
The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne
See Jane Date by Melissa Senate
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
The Sweet Spot by Kayla Perrin
32AA by Michelle Cunnah
Time Off for Good Behavior by Lani Diane Rich
True Love (and Other Lies) by Whitney Gaskell
Watermelon by Marion Keyes

Chick lit: looking for Mr. Right Now
Women's fiction: by women for women
Glitz and Glamour: fashion, furs and fame

MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA: DESERT DRAMAS

Exodus by Leon Utris
A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith

ASIA: VIEWS FROM THE EAST

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Spring Moon by Beete Bao Lord

UNITED STATES: RED, WHITE, AND NEW

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Brookland by Emily Barton
City of Lights by Lauren Belfer
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Creek Mary's Blood by Dee Brown
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Enemy Women by Paulett Jiles
Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Lincoln by Gore Vidal
North and South by John Jakes
People of the Wolf by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah by Nancy Turner
Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau by Jewell Parker Rhodes

EUROPE: ROAYALITY ROCKS-PEASANTS ROLL

The Alchemist's Daughter by Katherine McMahon
The Autobiography of Henry VIII, with Notes by His Fool Will Sommers by Margaret George
The Birth of Venus The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Circle of Pearls by Rosalind Laker
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Lady's Maid by Margaret Forester
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester
The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory
The Penmarric by Susan Howatch
Sails on the Horizon by Jay Worrall
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Mazwell
Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell
Through the Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen

MEDIEVAL EUROPE: MIDDLE AGE CRISIS

The Innoncent by Posie Graeme-Evans
Jerusalem by Cecelia Holland
The Name of the Rose by Umbertco Ecco
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
A Vision in Light by Judith Merkle Riley
The Winter Mantle by Elizabeth Chadwick
The Year of Wonder By Geraldine Brooks

ANCIENT WORLD: HOW NOW BROWN COW
The Assyrian by Nicholas Guild
The Beacon of Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel
Gates of fire by Steven Pressfield
The Gilded Chamber by Rebecca Kohn
Hippopotamus Marsh by Pauline Gedge
King and Goddess by Judith Tarr
Pompeii by Robert Harris
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd

CLASSICS: TO GOOD TO MISS

The Agony and the Ecstacy by Irving Stone
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Hawaii Hawaii by James Michenet
I, Claudiusby Robert Graves
Katherine by Anya Senton
The King Must Die by Mary Renault
Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy
Shogun by James Clavell

CLASSICS: HANDILY HIGHBROW
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Plot against America by Phillip Roth
Rabbit Run by John Updike
We the Living by Ayn Rand
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

MORE GREAT READS: NOT SO HOITY-TOITY
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Captain Corelli's Mandolon by Louise de Bernieres
Charms for and Easy Life by Kay Gibbons
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Hadden
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Happenstance by Carol Shields
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heavan by Sherman Alexie
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
Perfume: The Story of Murder by Patrick Suskind
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Pratical Magic by Alice Hoffman
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Falling on Cedar by David Guterson
Three Junes by Julia Gjass
The Tortilla Curtain by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Waiting by Ha Jin
White Teeth by Zadie Smith

I was a little disappointed the first time I read A is for Alibi. I liked Kinsey but I was not drawn to her as a character. I reread the book and liked it more and have decided to read more in the series.

HISTORICAL SLEUTHS: CRIME THROUGH TIME

CLASSICS
The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry
The Crocodile in the Sandbanks by Elizabeth Peters
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

MORE GREAT READS
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrove Manor by Stephanie Barron
The Last Kashmiri Rose by Barbara Cleverly
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
The Novice's Tale by Margaret Frazer
The Queen's Man by Sharon Kat Penman
Roman Blood by Steven Saylor
Shinju by Laura Joh Rowland
Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
To Shield the Queen by Fiona Buckley

PROCEDURALS: JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM

CLASSICS
The Blue Knight by Joseph Wambaugh
Cop Hater by Ed McBain

MORE GREAT READS:
The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman
Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter
The Blue Hour by T. Jefferson Perker
The Bone Collector The by Jeffery Deaver
Chiefs by Stuart Woods
Cover Her Face by P.D. James
Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell
The Rules of Prey by John Sanford
The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen
The Tin Collectors by Stephen J. Cannell
Undercurrents by Ridley Pearson
When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman

PRIVATE DETECTIVE: HEIRS OF HAMMETT

CLASSICS
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout
I, the Jury by Mickey Spillane
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

MORE GREAT READS
A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
Bloody Waters by Carolina Garcia-Aquilera
China Trade by S.J. Rozan
A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton
The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane
Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muhler
Fadeout by Joseph Hansen
The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker
The Guards by Ken Bruen
Idemnity Only by Sara Paretsky
The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais
Motor City Blue by Loren D. Estleman
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block
The Snatch by Bill Pronzini
A Trouble of Fools by Linda Barnes

AMETEUR SLEUTHS: WHERE IS JESSICS WHEN YOU NEED HER?

CLASSICS
Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
The Roman hat Mystery by Ellery Queen
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

MORE GREAT READS
Aunt Dimity's Deathby Nancy Atherton
The Body in the Belfry by Katherine Hall Page
Bones by Jan Burke
Booked to Die by John Dunning
Bootleggers Daughter by Margaret Maron
Bubbles Unbound by Sarah Storhmeyer
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lillian Jackson Brown
Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson
Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak
Death on Demand by Carolyn Hart
Fellowship of Fear by Aaron Elkins
Fools Puzzle by Earlene Fowlwer
Generous Death by Nancy Pickard
Nerve by Dick Francis
A New Leash on Death by Susan Conant
One for the Money by Jabet Evanovich
The Salaryman's Wife by Sunjata Massey
Strangled Prose by Joan Hess
The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell
Thyme of Death by Susan Wittig Albert
Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
Wish You Were Here by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown

Well I will be picking it up from the library on Tuesday

I agree Tera an amazing story and I think all women should read it

Ahsley was annoying. I wanted to shake him and yell be a man