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Our house is bursting at the seams with books. That is what I always tell the hubs after learning he ordered another bunch of books. 🙂 And as always, he just grins at me. He is a bookworm and I love him for that because I also love books. But I must admit, I used to read a lot but haven’t finished reading a book in months. I tried to get back at it and actually started reading a few books, but didn’t get to finish them.

I told my husband I need a book that will excite me and get me hooked again, and a love novel would be nice, I said. Then my sister-in-law told me about a certain author named Colleen Hoover. I checked and read the summary of her book, “It Ends With Us” and it seemed like a good read, so the hubs ordered it for me. It’s a book series so he ordered the other sequel for me too. Now I’m excited.

Although he has donated books or exchanged them at a local book store, my husband also loves to re-read books and still has decade’s-old books in his library. I don’t think I’ve ever re-read a book. Have you?

So here are our latest book picks!

1) The Stand Complete and Uncut

A book by his most favorite author, Stephen King, he has read this book at least a dozen times, so much that his original volume fell apart. He wanted a replacement so I got him one for Christmas.

This book is thick. The original manuscript was roughly 500 pages longer but approximately 150,000 words were cut for financial reasons; it would have cost too much to print and publish and the cost to the consumer was more than the 1978 market could bear. But after so much clamor by fans, King put his original manuscript together again in a complete and uncut edition, updating it and adding an ironic ending. In the end, this edition ended after 1,153 pages.

The hubs had the original paperback of the first short version but he raves about this one. According to him, though he has read most of King’s works, this one, along with It, are his most favorite ones.

2) The Complete Short Stories Of Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe was born and raised here in Asheville, North Carolina, and we actually went to his grave before which is located close to where we live. The hubs is a fan of his, especially his auto-biographical novel Look Homeward Angel, and he wanted to show me his final resting place. It was interesting because I have never visited a popular author’s grave before.

3) The Great Santini: A Novel

An auto-biographical novel by Pat Conroy, it is about growing up in a family led by tyrannical military father. He later followed this work with a memoir telling the actual story of his life with this brutal father, The Death of Santini.

4) The Wall

This is a historical novel by John Hersey which is about the Jewish ghetto in World War II Warsaw, Poland. Hersey is another of the hubs’ favorite authors. Being a history buff, the hubs loves that Hersey wrote many books based on historical themes. His first book, Into the Valley, however, was based on his real-life experiences as a Time-Life war correspondent assigned to the Marines on Guadalcanal in 1942. This book could go hand-in-hand with the one written by another correspondent, Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary.

Hersey also wrote Hiroshima, sharing the experiences of six survivors of the atomic bombing. A couple of his other novels were based on WWII, A Bell for Adano and The War Lover, both later made into movies.

But according to the hubs, one of his most interesting works was an alternate history description of slavery showing Americans being put into slavery after losing a war to China, the irony being the shoe put onto another foot. And I must thank my hubs for this history lesson seeing that I’ve read none of these books.

5) It Ends with Us: A Novel

This would be the first book of Colleen Hoover that I will ever read. I also came across a blogger talking about her so she must be good.

6) It Starts with Us: A Novel

And here’s the second one of the Colleen Hoover series. I’m really excited about reading this series.

How about you? What are your latest book picks?