Goodreads & #FridayReads & the awesomeness of sharing book picks

Who says people don't read books any more?

I was a witness (and minor participant) in a pretty awesome event on Thursday night. A friend posted on Facebook that she had just finished reading the entirety of the Harry Potter series and was seeking recommendations for other books to read. They could be anything at all — fiction, non-fiction, modern, classics, whatever. She was just looking for fresh suggestions.

Over the course of about three hours, she received a jaw-dropping response — well over 100 books and series. It seems like everyone is reading these days. And that's pretty cool.

I compiled the entire list of suggestions, and I want to leave it here for posterity. It could, in turn, inspire others to seek out books they might not otherwise have known about. (I added numerous books to my Goodreads "To Read" list while compiling this.)

• We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
• The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit
• Light Boxes by Shane Jones
• The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District by James Rebanks
• The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino
• Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky
• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
• Any science-fiction by Clifford D. Simak
• Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes
• Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation by Edward Humes
• Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon
• Candyfreak by Steve Almond
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
• The Time in Between by Maria Dueñas
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• A Man Call Ove by Fredrik Backman
• The Passage by Justin Cronin
• The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Magicians (The Magicians #1) by Lev Grossman
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
• The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
• Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
• The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1) by Patrick Rothfuss
• The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle #2) by Patrick Rothfuss
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
• The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1) by Scott Lynch
• The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson
• Dandelion Wine (Green Town #1) by Ray Bradbury
• Something Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town #2) by Ray Bradbury
• Farewell Summer (Green Town #3) by Ray Bradbury
• Summer Morning, Summer Night (Green Town #4) by Ray Bradbury
• The Crystal Cave (Arthurian Saga #1) by Mary Stewart
• The Circle by Dave Eggers
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
• Anything by David Sedaris
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
• Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Anything by Ross King (including Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Leonardo and the Last Supper)
• There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz
• The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death, and America's Dilemma by Alex Kotlowitz
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
• Going Solo by Roald Dahl
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan
• Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
• Liar's Poker by Micahel Lewis
• Columbine by Dave Cullen
• Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
• Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
• Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
• The Son by Philipp Meyer
• The Outlander Series (1-7) by Diana Gabaldon
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
• Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz
• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
• Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof
• The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America by David Hajdu
• The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All by Gregory Bassham
• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt #1) by Edmund Morris
• Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture by Matt Goulding
• On the Rez by Ian Frazier
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne
• Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
• Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1) by Douglas Adams
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
• Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest
• Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
• The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman #1) by Ben H. Winters
• Countdown City (The Last Policeman #2) by Ben H. Winters
• World of Trouble (The Last Policeman #3) by Ben H. Winters
• The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. Hoffman
• Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist by Robert Miraldi

Happy reading!