Books You Can't Shut Up About

[ManMachine]

Ever come across a book that you can't stop trying to hand over to your friends, or convincing them to buy, or listen to, or at least listen to you go on and on about it?

My most recent one is "The Night Circus".

On the recommendation of a handful of friends, and several book podcasters, I picked up the audiobook with a refreshed Audible membership, and now I'm listening to it for the second time.

This book is one of the most sensuous (and subtly sensual) and beautiful and fantastical books I've ever read. It grabs you by the feels in that child-like wonder sort of way, and seduces you with nostalgia, and it's horribly bitter and achingly sweet all at once.

The only way I can succinctly describe the feeling you get when you read it, and return to it, when explaining to people who've never cracked it open, is to ask if they've ever seen the original Willy Wonka movie. Gene Wilder opens the doors to the inner sanctum of the factory and says softly, "Close your eyes...make a wish...count to three."

This is the book you want to read on a sharply frosty night, with a cup of the finest cocoa, maybe drizzled with caramel to complement the many mentions of it throughout the story. But also, you want to hear it read out loud, because the narrator is brilliant. He left me shivering.

Anyone got one they want to plug?

I have two from opposite sides of the literary arena...

My current 'best recommendation' is Rebecca Goldstein's, Plato at the Googleplex. - A book that explores what might happen if Plato was alive today...

N Y Times - Review, Plato at the Googleplex

The other is the Graphic Novel series Ethan Nicole's, Chumble Spuzz - A comic encounter with some fairly heavy religious themes (what happens when death commits suicide?).

Wiki - Chumble Spuzz