When searching for a new great book to read, where do you go for a recommendation? Some people might do a google search for their favorite authors or read book reviews in the Times or just wander the aisles of Barnes and Noble until something looks good. I myself prefer to get recommendations from my friends. They are the ones that have the most in common with me, so naturally we would like the same books. However, this theory doesn't always work out for the best. My friend Mark gave me his copy of The Devil Wears Prada with a sweet little note inscribed in the back of the cover describing the joy he got from reading it and his hopes that I would laugh as hard as he did. Not so, Mark. Not so. Halfway through I wanted to light it on fire and watch it burn. I hate that book.
So what's a book junkie to do in order to find their next fix? I started asking random people what they were reading. At the local pizza parlor only one employee was reading a book. Actually he was re-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. An excellent choice, but I've also already read it. I work at an elementary school and have always been hesitant to ask my co-workers what they're reading, fearing they'll tell me "Chicken Soup for the Oprah's Book Club" or "How to feel good about yourself by losing 20 lbs in three days". To my surprise most of my co-workers like to cozy up with a historical fiction novel or a mystery. Maybe asking an unexpected person for a book recommendation will bring a happy result. Here's a list of five book recommendations from five elementary school teachers:
           5. The Virgin's Lover by Phillipa Gregory. This book, as described by Amazon is "about the beautiful young Virgin Queen, portrayed as a narcissistic, neurotic home-wrecker."
           4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. This one sounds really weird. It's about a 21 year old man who runs away from home and joins the circus. Discovering how f**ked up the circus actually is, he becomes "self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden."
           3. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. He wrote The Kite Runner, which was very popular and naturally adapted for the screen. Splendid Suns is described as "a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope."
           2. The Moor's Last Sigh by Salmon Rushdie. The Moor tells of "family rifts and premature deaths and thwarted loves and mad passions and weak chests and power and money and... the seductions and mysteries of art."
           1. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Lamb tells the life of a woman from the time she's 3 years old up to 33 years in brutal honesty. "Hers is a dysfunctional Wonder Years, where growing up in the golden era was anything but ideal."

 

Agnes Giacondo lives in Madison, WI where she teaches third grade. She is currently writing her first children's book.