Earlier this month my DH went to China for a couple of weeks so we broke down and finally got him a Kindle. Well, it was more like I dragged him kicking and screaming into getting a Kindle. (No, I don't have one but I'd gotten one for my elderly mother and drilled her in how to use it so I knew pretty much all about them.) My husband went from being a reluctant Kindle owner to an avid Kindle owner. He travels a LOT and he was always packing piles of paperbacks in his luggage. Sometimes he'd run out and wind up buying more paperbacks and carting them home. (One reason we quite literally have thousands of them.) He loved just having the Kindle to pack when going to China. He loved that he had 90 books loaded into it. (All but one of them free.) He's in Washington state now and didn't even look at packing paperbacks, just stuck his Kindle in his carryon. As far as the ipad goes, yes it does a lot more than a Kindle does BUT, I wouldn't recommend it for reading for long periods of time. The display screen of a Kindle really does look like a printed page....a printed page taht you can adjust the text size. An ipad or any tablet thing like that will be backlit and while that might make it easier for you to read in a roomw ith no lights, it'll also tire your eyes more....just like reading a computer screen all day.

I have only read a few of those books, one of which (The World According to Garp) I actively disliked. From what I know of them, they are not what I personally would choose to read during hard times, especially a prolonged period of hard times. I might want to read a book or two or three that provided understanding about what I was going through, but mostly I would like to remind myself that times had once been better, and possibly would be again one day. When I am worried and depressed and struggling, I don't want to read that life is all about fear and sadness and endless difficulty, whether those books tell me that patient endurance and courage will eventually see me through, or whether they tell me there's no hope at the end, anyway. So yes, books about hard times, best read in retrospect, when life is a bit more bearable.

Hi Lisa - I've been in a book group since 1995, so we have read over a hundred books. I do try to keep some ratings of the books we read, but I'm not always up to date. And not all the books we've read have been rated. But according to my records, here are some of our favorites - based on how much we enjoyed reading them and how discussable they were (not necessarily in any order): A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood A Yellow Raft in Blue Water - Michael Dorris The Girls - Lori Lansens Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks Some that haven't been rated but were group favorites were: Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner Because of Winn Dixie - Kate DiCamillo (a YA book) Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri Peace Like a River - Leif Enger To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Also, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, received a perfect 5 out of 5 from all of those who read it. Much of this is pretty standard book club fare, which is what my book group seems to prefer. The above books were not necessarily my favorites, although I agreed with many of the ratings. If I were to list my faves, they would be (not in any order): Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler (Surprise!) Cider House Rules - John Irving East of Eden - Steinbeck Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus Montana 1948 - Larry Watson Life of Pi - Yann Martel (close to the top of my list) Each book group has it's own personality, just as individuals do. Over time, you will discover you group's personality and will learn the types of books that work and the type that don't work. Good luck ... and happy reading and discussing.

I came across the following commentary on this list on the Bookslut website, and I had to laugh: (by Jessa Crispin from Blog of a Bookslut) The New York Times has released their 100 Notable Books of 2006 and it's zzzzzzzzzz.... Oh, sorry, drifted off there for a second. No, really, it's the most boring list of books since they released their Notable Books of 2005. Because I was bored last night and avoiding work, I worked out some statistics. (I also had had two glasses of wine at this point, so feel free to correct me if I miscounted.) 94% of the year's notable books were released by conglomerate publishing 30% were produced by one division of Random House or another 50% of the year's notable fiction/poetry were written by women 26% of the year's notable nonfiction were written by women 1% are comic books 1% of the books seem to have caused incredulity even in the synopsis writer 20% of the list I would agree with 15% of the list made me shake my head/roll my eyes/snort 6% were written by tired, old authors whose best books are years behind them 2% do not seem to have been reviewed by the NYT (yet), which means they do not believe they can make mistakes and overlook a book. They can. It'll come out eventually, but who wants to volunteer to check to see how many of the writers of these books have also written for the New York Times? Here is a link that might be useful: Bookslut