Recommend the 20 best books you've read in the last five years

Beschrijving
A casual acquaintance is looking for ideas about books to read, but you don't know much about their tastes. Thinking back over your last five years of reading, which books would you recommend?
1
64 leden
4 besprekingen
4.1
Algemene Rangorde 1,260
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donutage: A brilliant webcomic series concerning 6 school-aged "mystery kids" investigating vaguely supernatural events in the town of Tackleford, England. This case, along with volume 7 (The Case of the Forked Road), is one of the high points, but it is well worth reading the series from the beginning. Although each case is fairly self-contained, they take place chronologically (in consecutive school terms), so there is longer-term character development going on as well.
2
61 leden
3 besprekingen
½ 4.4
Algemene Rangorde 1,261
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donutage: Another webcomic series collection, also involving British school kids. GC Is more solidly in the fantasy genre, but mixes in elements of science-fiction, mild horror, humor, and mystery. This volume is the culmination of several long-term dramatic arcs: it definitely helps to start from the beginning.
3
17,437 leden
257 besprekingen
3.9
Algemene Rangorde 448
2 Members
donutage, Tinuvia
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donutage: Begins confusingly in media res, but once I got going I had trouble putting this down. The central plot concerning occult conspiracy theories has become increasingly and distressingly relevant, but the novel is also an examination of intellectual integrity and the duties of fiction.
4
35,343 leden
539 besprekingen
3.8
Algemene Rangorde 91
11 Members
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donutage: It's a "classic" for a reason. Ambitious, profound, playful, at times bizarre. Like many, I read this back in high school and was somewhat flummoxed by the "boring" "digressions" about whale anatomy and sailing ships. When I re-read it a couple years ago, I was more willing to take the sprawling narrative on its own terms and found it infinitely enjoyable.
5
804 leden
19 besprekingen
4
Algemene Rangorde 1,209
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donutage: An informative book on practical science cleverly disguised by a veneer of science fiction and Ryan North's signature brand of wry humor. Do you know how and why soap works? I didn't until reading this book, and that's just one of hundreds of actually useful bits of knowledge it contains.
6
13,798 leden
232 besprekingen
3.9
Algemene Rangorde 848
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donutage: I read (and loved) the Hitchhiker's Guide books ages ago, but didn't bother with the Dirk Gentley novels until my teen son and I decided to read them together, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find them delightful. Of the two, the first (this one) is probably has the more coherent plot, but both are full of Adams's unique brand of oddball humor.
7
21,521 leden
418 besprekingen
3.8
Algemene Rangorde 345
2 Members
donutage, Tafadhali
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donutage: I made a point of completing my reading of Austen's novels recently. Pride and Prejudice remains my favorite, and there's much to be said for all the others, but this one stood out to me because it is so different from its siblings. Essentially a parody of the popular gothic novel, it is full of delightful narratorial asides about what *ought* to happen according to the genre's conventions and how this novel will fail to deliver them.
8
252 leden
17 besprekingen
½ 3.6
Algemene Rangorde 1,032
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donutage: A history of the video game in graphic novel format. The story itself is fascinating enough, involving as it does the intersection of the nascent gaming industry and late Cold War-era international business, and it is served well by Brown's spare art and deft storytelling.
9
1,997 leden
20 besprekingen
½ 4.5
Algemene Rangorde 1,079
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10
15,236 leden
296 besprekingen
3.9
Algemene Rangorde 476
2 Members
donutage, RickyHaas
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donutage: I read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes recently, and it's hard to single out any one of them, but I found this novel-length work especially satisfying as it takes its time setting up and then unraveling its mystery.
11
22,140 leden
1,262 besprekingen
4.2
Algemene Rangorde 61
15 Members
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donutage: An inventive and, by the end, surprisingly moving story of an orphan raised in and by a graveyard. Categorized as a YA title, which is understandable, but I consider it also a meditation on parenthood.
12
8,859 leden
173 besprekingen
3.8
Algemene Rangorde 502
2 Members
donutage, dhm
13
3,329 leden
114 besprekingen
3.9
Algemene Rangorde 1,436
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14
949 leden
8 besprekingen
3.9
Algemene Rangorde 1,521
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15
67 leden
7 besprekingen
4.1
Algemene Rangorde 1,614
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16
44 leden
½ 4.3
Algemene Rangorde 1,689
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17
298 leden
18 besprekingen
½ 3.6
Algemene Rangorde 1,738
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donutage: I'm not sure how many people are represented by the Venn diagram intersection of design nerds and people obsessed with the infamous Milgram experiments, but apparently I am one of them.
18
821 leden
20 besprekingen
4.1
Algemene Rangorde 1,788
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19
277 leden
16 besprekingen
4.1
Algemene Rangorde 1,866
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20
1,818 leden
29 besprekingen
4.2
Algemene Rangorde 1,898
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