1. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, recommended by Greg from The New Dork Review - This is one of the first book blogger recommendations I remember listening to, and I'm glad I did. The book is touching and funny, with just the right amount of sarcasm (a lot. A lot of sarcasm is the right amount). I may have picked up this book on my own. Maybe eventually. But I definitely picked this one up because of Greg's review of this book and a few other Tropper works.
2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, recommended by Greg again, The Reading Ape and Brenna from Literary Musings - This was a collective effort, although it's not like they all knew they were working together to get me to read this. The Pulitzer scared me off but these three calming explained that the book rocks and I need to get over it and just read it. OK, not directly at me but that was the message I got. And I'm glad I did because this was easily one of my favorite books of the year.
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, recommended by (& won from!) Jennifer from Soy Chai Bookshelf - This one was recommended to me a couple times by college friends but I never actually read it until I a) read Jennifer's review of it and b) won a copy from her. And I'm so glad I did both because it really was a good book and I should probably apologize to my friend for ignoring him
4. Beijing Coma by Ma Jian, recommended by Pete from What You Read - When I began the China Rican Reading Challenge, I needed some recommendations on books and lots of people came through with Chinese suggestions (Puerto Rican was another story...) but I ended up going with Pete's suggestion of Beijing Coma which was crazy long and intense and very good. I know this is one I wouldn't have picked up if I didn't trust the recommender's taste.
5. The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman, recommended by (& won from!) Alice from Reading Rambo - So yes, another book I won but that's not the only reason I read it! Or rather, I wouldn't have entered the contest in the first place if I didn't like Alice's review of the book and think "I need to check this out for myself". It was a pretty hilarious read that I'm sure I would never have gotten to if she hadn't recommended it.
6. Recommendations from Ben of Dead End Follies - I was going to list out separate entries for each book and then realized while that might get me to 10, Ben would kind of take over the list. I didn't realize how often I take his book recommendations until they're listed out, so here they are:
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane (though Ellen from Fat Books & Thin Women gets some credit for this as well)
Black Coffee Blues by Henry Rollins
Hogdoggin' by Anthony Neil Smith
Now there are other bloggers whose recommendations I plan on taking, like Devouring Books Laura's recommendation of Joyce Carol Oats's book Blonde but I figured I'd go with the books I've already read instead of the ones I plan on reading but haven't made it that far yet. And of course there are the books like Room and The Help that I'm reading essentially cos everyone else read them and said (mostly) good things about them so I can't give credit to any one person.
