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A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library)
 

A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library)

by John Irving

Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work.... (read more)

Top tags: fiction,  contemporary fiction,  john irving,  coming of age,  vietnam (all tags)

Overview: Groups

Reader's Cramp 79 books / 203 members / 265 posts This group is solemnly dedicated to every reader's cramp: the aggravating tome.

Do you still remember the last book you read that frustrated the hell out of you? Maybe it led you on, peaked your interest but then clichéd you to death in the dark alley of its final 'graph. Perhaps it promised what it could not deliver, or just grated on you with preachy soapboxing.

Add your "favorite" frustrating books to the group shelf. Vent about your latest letdown. Commiserate, carp, and kvetch. Go ahead, let it all out...we understand.
Crazy Lady Book Club 74 books / 15 members / 6 posts We are a group of educators, always encouraging reading for our students, but finding little time to read on our own. Hence, the creation of a book club so we would force ourselves to "practice what we preach". Sometimes we eat and chat more than discuss books, but the underlying current is READING.
Jesrabbit's Reading List 148 books / 1 members / 0 posts
Moms Who Read To Escape Their Weary Lives 727 books / 1168 members / 7272 posts
In order to find out what books the Moms Who Read are discussing, please click on the blue "more" link at the end of the next paragraph.

You may lose a few brain cells when you become a mother, but you still love to read! Whether you're able to fit in one book per year or 100 between changing diapers and/or taxiing kids to sports and activities, this is the place to come to chat about your current books or to get ideas for future reading. So grab a book, settle in, and let off some steam if you need to...we mommies are here to listen!


October Title:
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (Nominated by ~*Kim*~)

The discussion began on October 1, but feel free to add to it at any time by searching for the thread using the "Search Discussions" link on the upper right side of the page.

Upcoming titles:
November - The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent (Nominated by Shan)
December - The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff (Nominated by Julie)

Discussions will begin on the first of each month.

Past titles:
The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center (with author chat)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
All the Numbers by Judy Merrill Larsen (with author chat)
In the Woods by Tana French
The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross (with author chat)
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
An Inconvenient Wife by Megan Chance (with author chat)
Love Walked In by Maria de Los Santos
The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain

If you have anything you'd like to add to these discussions at any time, don't hesitate to pull the book titles up from the "Search Discussions" link on the upper right side of the page and add to the threads!

While we appreciate that many of our members are authors, please do not post book promotions to our group. I will remove them as I do not want anyone to feel pressured to buy anything or be bothered by numerous spams in the discussion list. Thank you for understanding.
The Book Chicks 86 books / 2 members / 0 posts Our local book club meets monthly and discusses both fiction and nonfiction.
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die 1117 books / 2712 members / 540 posts THESE ARE BOOKS FROM THE BOOK "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" BY Peter Boxall, Peter Ackroyd


This group is for the other people trying to read all of the "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"

http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm?content_id=22845


"1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"

1. 2000s
1. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
2. Saturday – Ian McEwan
3. On Beauty – Zadie Smith
4. Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
6. The Sea – John Banville
7. The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
8. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
9. The Master – Colm Tóibín
10. Vanishing Point – David Markson
11. The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
12. Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair
13. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
14. Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
15. The Colour – Rose Tremain
16. Thursbitch – Alan Garner
17. The Light of Day – Graham Swift
18. What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
20. Islands – Dan Sleigh
21. Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
22. London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
23. Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
24. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
25. The Double – José Saramago
26. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
27. Unless – Carol Shields
28. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
29. The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
30. That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
31. In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
32. Shroud – John Banville
33. Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
34. Youth – J.M. Coetzee
35. Dead Air – Iain Banks
36. Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
37. The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
38. Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi
39. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
40. Platform – Michael Houellebecq
41. Schooling – Heather McGowan
42. Atonement – Ian McEwan
43. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
44. Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
45. The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
46. Fury – Salman Rushdie
47. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill
48. Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
49. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
50. The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
51. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
52. The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho
53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
54. White Teeth – Zadie Smith
55. The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
56. Under the Skin – Michel Faber
57. Ignorance – Milan Kundera
58. Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
59. Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
60. City of God – E.L. Doctorow
61. How the Dead Live – Will Self
62. The Human Stain – Philip Roth
63. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
64. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
65. Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande
66. Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
67. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
68. Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates
69. Pastoralia – George Saunders
.
71. 1900s
70. Timbuktu – Paul Auster
71. The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra
72. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
73. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
74. Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
75. Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb
76. The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie
77. Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee
78. Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
79. Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
80. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
81. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan
82. Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
83. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
84. The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
85. Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
86. The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
87. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
88. Another World – Pat Barker
89. The Hours – Michael Cunningham
90. Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
91. Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
92. The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
93. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
94. Great Apes – Will Self
95. Enduring Love – Ian McEwan
96. Underworld – Don DeLillo
97. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
98. The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
99. American Pastoral – Philip Roth
100. The Untouchable – John Banville
101. Silk – Alessandro Baricco
102. Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
103. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
105. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
106. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
107. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
108. The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
110. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
111. Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
112. The Information – Martin Amis
113. The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie
114. Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth
115. The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
116. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
117. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
118. Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
119. The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
120. Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
121. The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
122. Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
123. Land – Park Kyong-ni
124. The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
125. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
126. Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
127. City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
128. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
129. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
130. Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor
131. Disappearance – David Dabydeen
132. The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
133. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
134. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
135. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
136. Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
137. Operation Shylock – Philip Roth
138. Complicity – Iain Banks
139. On Love – Alain de Botton
140. What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
141. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
142. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
143. The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
144. The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
145. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
146. The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
147. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
148. Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
149. The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
150. A Heart So White – Javier Marias
151. Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
152. Indigo – Marina Warner
153. The Crow Road – Iain Banks
154. Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
155. Jazz – Toni Morrison
156. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
157. Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg
158. The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe
159. Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
160. The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
161. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
162. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
163. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
164