Eight Crazy Nights: A Tote Bag of Books

Book CoverIt’s another giveaway in our Eight Crazy Nights of fun here at Smart Bitches.

Today’s prize: a totebag with three novels from the Harper Perennial Olive Editions. They’re cute and little and a fabulous repackaging, in my opinion, of some hefty good books.

The prize bag includes a copy of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kindera.

Want to heft a bag of books? Just leave a comment with your answer to the following question: what was the best book you read this year that wasn’t a romance? Comments close in 24 hours, so share your recommendations and keep your fingers crossed.

Comments are Closed

  1. Babs says:

    The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

    Charming, wonderful, sweet and sad—not to mention a wonderful take on what a family can be! I’d love more tales of Nobody Owens!

  2. Denise says:

    An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear. I was haunted by this story long after I finished the book.

  3. Laura says:

    I have to agree on The Wordy Shipmates – hilarious and educational! I love to listen to her on my ipod…

    Spamword: feeling67. Well no, I don’t feel that old!

  4. Sugarless says:

    Ragtime by EL Doctorrow

    I love how he took three families, an upper middle class white family, a black family and a poor immigrant father and daughter and merged their lives in the first decade of the 19th century, with famous and infamous people from the time weaved in an out of the story. The way he does it is fascinating.

  5. Kimberly Anne says:

    Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism

    by Daniel Harris

    The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need

    by Juliet B. Schor

    These two books totally changed both my understanding of our culture, and my experience of living within it.  Highly recommended for anyone who wants to know more about how we got into this economic madhouse.

  6. OMG! The prize contains MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH by Michael Chabon.  He’s my cousin and I remember when that was released YEARS ago. Quite an interesting book! LOL!

    My favorite non-romance book from this year that I read:

    The Glass Castle
    A Memoir
    by Jeannette Walls

  7. Kimberly Anne says:

    Dammit, those were supposed to be italics, not quotes.  I suck at this game.

    special74 – yes, I am special. How did you know?

  8. Anne M says:

    Best non-romance book ? Well, I have two. Let me explain.

    I start reading Heart-Shaped-Box, from Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son) and I am ashamed to say that it was so well written that my imagination got to work over-time and I got too scare to continue reading the book. When my husband came back for lunch that day, I gave him the book and told him to take it away from me, that I was too scare of it to have it in my house.

    The other book, this one I finish, was Double-Cross, featuring the detective Alex Cross, from James Patterson. I can’t help but follow Det. Cross “adventures” (somebody almost always end end wanting to kill him).
    Thanks !!

  9. Linnet says:

    Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps

    It’s a study of how men and women think differently (complete with brain scan images) and touches on what seems like everything, based on how we think affecting everything from career choices to sex. It generalizes but I found a lot of truth in it and it explained some things that I knew but didn’t know why (if you follow what I mean.)

  10. partystripes says:

    The best book I read this year, romance or not, was The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.  It’s absolutely beautiful.

  11. Alex says:

    Oh, man, what to pick…

    Okay, Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

  12. Anony Miss says:

    Stardust by Neil Gaiman… Why did I buy it? Because I was pregnant with my second child, and remembered from kiddo number 1 that what with long nursing sessions, I’d be able to go through a bunch of books like wildfire.

    So I bought one, just one – this one, based on the SBTB recommendation! (even though it is not, strictly speaking, a romance, even if it has romantic elements)

    My baby was all of 3 weeks old by the time I finished it.

    Lesson learned? The ‘relaxing’ time you have with your first child doesn’t repeat itself with the second child… because you STILL have your first child!!

  13. DeeCee says:

    Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

    It follows the author as she tries to make a living at minuimum wage and really puts the difference between the rich and working class.

  14. HaloKun says:

    Wow!  I have a read a lot of the same books and liked most of them too.

    But I have to say the best was “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” By Steig Larsson.
    This is the first book in a new Swedish Crime Thriller trilogy.
    Unfortunately Mr. Larsson died shortly after handing in all three manuscripts.  The second comes out next year and I can’t wait to see what happens.

  15. Kimberly says:

    My Jesus Year. Its a book about the son of a rabbi who marries a converted daughter of a minister. He spends an entire year going to different christian churches and trying to find inspiration for his own faith. He goes to the mega churches and a christian wrestling match and little country churches. I read it all in one night and absolutely loved it!

  16. Brandi says:

    Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by the late David Foster Wallace—in particular, the essay “Big Red Son” (about the porn industry) was one of the most hilariously horrible things I’ve read.  A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men were also excellent.

    aside to Marski: was “that acid induced veggie man of inspiration” something like this? Animated Arcimboldo would be pretty cool to see as far as I’m concerned (though I’m afraid the movie looks more like a “wait for it at Netflix” one).

  17. Kimberly says:

    Oohj! Let me go back and add Bonk by Mary Roach. Its all about the intersection of science and sex. If your like me and you love anything that has to do with the human response to sex, then this is a book you HAVE to read!

  18. Brandi says:

    Followup: “Big Red Son” is even more hilariously horrible when you find that you are reading in the doctor’s office while waiting for your annual pelvic exam. 😮

  19. AbbyT says:

    Travels with Herodotus was so completely out of the norm for what I typically read and I was blown away by it.

    Kapuscinski is one of the most believable narrators I have ever met.  In his writing, he comes close to ingenuousness, but his childlike wonder of the world around him doesn’t conceal a sharp wit, intellect and a deep understanding and respect of humanity in all its forms. This is so much more than a travel novel.

    I got the book from the library and the moment I finished it, went out and purchased my own copy.

  20. The Queen’s Bastard, by C.E. Murphy. Excellent pseudo-alternate-history fantasy wherein we have a heroine who’s the bastard daughter of a Queen suspiciously like Elizabeth I, who’s been raised up to serve her mother as an assassin—and who possesses magic.

    Deliciously complex, full of politics and intrigue, this thing is fun. But the biggest draw for me is the main character, Belinda. She’s morally ambiguous, enough that more than once through this book I caught myself wondering if I actually liked her. Yet she’s also utterly compelling. She cuts a swath through any number of lovers, and yet in this book, each and every sexual encounter she has furthers the plot. Some of them come back later to haunt her in significant ways, too.

    Highly, highly recommended.

  21. Karen Junker says:

    The Tender Bar, a memoir by J.R. Moehringer
    or Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, it’s a tie.

  22. Caty M says:

    Really, really tough to pick only one, but I’d have to say – 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff – a collection of letters exchanged between Hanff and Marks & Co bookshop in London, beginning in 1949 and going on to the late 60s.  Warm and humerous, and just brimming over with a love of books and words.  Absolutely wonderful.

  23. AbbyNormal says:

    The Hippopotamus, by Stephen Fry. Genius.

  24. The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen.  I know it isn’t new, but it is a really a great book and how I managed to miss it is beyond me.  I just like all the snark at Bram Stoker and I cannot read just Vampire Porn all the time… 😉

  25. L. Violet says:

    Sooo hard to recall all this year’s books. I’m going with a picture book: Big Momma Makes the World by Phyllis Root. Amazing language, huge heart, soaring spirit, and gorgeous illustrations. It’s a warm and funny book about the biggest subject imaginable—and it’s female-friendly. Memorable and uplifting.

  26. Hilcia says:

    Snow by Orhan Pamuk and
    Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez

  27. Lori says:

    This year I had so much reading to do for grad school that I didn’t read much other than textbooks & romances.  There was one nonfiction book that I managed to finish that was very good.

    The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.  It was fascinating and horribly sad and I learned a lot that I didn’t know about the Dust Bowl. 

    Verification word schools83.  Actually school’s more than 83% of my reading these days.

  28. phinea says:

    The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde!

  29. Amanda says:

    Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.  So funny/interesting/insightful… some damn good nonfiction!

  30. ms bookjunkie says:

    Farthing by Jo Walton

    What if Britain hadn’t kept fighting the Third Reich after Dunkirk, but had made a separate peace with it instead? What if, in the late 40’s, France was still occupied and Britain was selling itself out to fascism? What if. . .

    It sends chills down your spine.

  31. joykenn says:

    I read Charlaine Harris—yes, yes the southern vampire books were interesting and the girl who finds dead bodies were good but I read the last few of her Shakespeare series.  Its older and just being reissued in light of the HBO series True Blood but Shakespeare’s Landlord (the first of the series) and all the others give you an unfolding picture of the trauma of rape and the slow recovery of a shattered life.  Lily Bard goes from a happy careerwoman to cleaning houses in a little town and trying to cope with her memories getting involved with the people of the town and solving mysteries in spite of herself.  Quietly moving books.  Try them!!

  32. Sandia says:

    I read the Black Jewels Trilogy this year – I think that’s definitely not romance and it was great… got me started on a whole fantasy kick.  But… now, I’m back to the urban fantasies.  I can’t stop reading them…. any urban fantasy recommendations?  I just devoured Karen Chance’s Cassie Palmer series….

  33. Cory says:

    I also loved the Temeraire books, and am in the middle of Isabel Allende’s Zorro which is awesome. Inkdeath was long awaited and satisfying. . .but I think by far the best I read all year, the one that wrecked me, was the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. Alexie never ceases changing my life.

  34. Maggie Moony says:

    Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.  It was orginally read for a class but I love, love, LOVE this graphic novel.  It’s so awesome I really have no words.  Basically, its the memior of a comic strip writer looking back on her youth and her father, a deeply flawed closeted gay man.  She, is a lesbian, and the memior is her trying to figure out her father, their relationship, and the effects he had on her life.

  35. Bess says:

    I think the most fascinating book I’ve read this year was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
    It takes place after World War II, when a woman, looking for ideas for her next book, gets a letter from a man she’s never met. As they write letters back and forth, she learns of where he’s from, the island of Guernsey, and the “Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” an excuse when for breaking the curfew when the Germans occupied their island. She begins correspondence with the rest of the “club,” who are charming and eccentric and from all walks of life. (I won’t give too much away, though.) She finally visits the island, where she makes an incredible discovery.
    The book is written brilliantly and excitingly as a series of letters, and it is full of warmth (however cheesy and cliched that probably sounds right now.) It made me smile and lifted my heart, and really affected me.

  36. Melissa says:

    Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy and His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik were my best finds for 2008

  37. Patsy says:

    The End of the Affair Yes, I’m a late-comer to the Graham Greene bandwagon.  I guess it could technically be considered a romance as it’s the most lucid take I’ve ever read on obsessive unresolved love.

    Runner-up: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.  A beautiful, moving account of how people can love one another without understanding each other in the least.

  38. Elizabeth says:

    Oh I’m torn. I read several great non-romances this year.  I read Julia Spencer-Flemings entire Claire Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series (omg when does the next one come out) and felt like I was becoming a broken record recommending these books to people but I love them a lot. They’re the perfect blend of mystery/romance for me.

    But I also read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and it’s quite enjoyable and I can’t wait for the last book. I’d recommend them to anyone who enjoyed Harry Potter but was perhaps bored by some of the minutia (I remain unconvinced that book 7 needed all of those pages devoted to “we’re wizards and we’re in the woods” moments) and how tiresomely emo-tastic Harry could get.

    Then there was The Secret Adversary which was my first foray into Agatha Christie and it was a fabulous choice because I love Tommy and Tuppence.

    I guess, if I must choose, I’ll have to go with that one because it’s only one and doesn’t force me to pick a favorite out of 2 series that I love.  Also, because Tommy and Tuppence are kind of the template for all other man and woman crime-solving duos that I love.

  39. Megan says:

    Definitely Belong To Me by Marisa de los Santos. I loved her debut novel Love Walked In but actually managed to enjoy the sequel more! Just a beautifully told story of friendship, love, sacrifice and secrets—and what it means to truly “belong” to those who love us, if we ever really do.

  40. kittyfischer says:

    Grave Peril by Jim Butcher.

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