I'll look a little later. We had a chicken from across the street, who made herself at home here. We called her "miss pretty" and she took to hopping up a 40 foot ladder with scaffolding to get to roof to get to the maple tree where she would roost at night outside our window. When the roof job was finished, she began to roost on the rose arbor out back. We went on vacation, and she got killed and eaten by some critter. WE were all so sad. I never wanted to eat her, but I sure have dreamed about keeping chickens ever since then. I apolgize for the hijack, but needed to reminise a bit.

Hmmm...I'm torn about what would constitute a good book forum. Just MHO, but I think there can be an intimidating factor that is off-putting on some book forums. As I mentioned in my post above, even my best friends and I don't always agree on what constitutes a good book. But because of our history of friendship, we don't feel hurt or harshly judged when someone says, "that book didn't do it for me." It's especially hard to convey a difference of opinion when it's delivered in a post. Sometimes I re-read things I've posted which I've meant to sound funny or wry, and am worried that my tone might have been misinterpreted. So how about this - For now, how about a thread where we can list books that we've enjoyed recently, and some of our all-time favorites? Without giving away too much, we can give some general info and maybe alert people if they contain coarse language/graphic violence/sex, etc. I mention this because my MIL often passes on "CSI"-type mystery novels that she enjoys to me. I'm not especially prudish, but I do a lot of my reading at night instead of watching TV and I've found that reading books with disturbing themes like child abuse/decapitations/rapes, etc. are too disrupting to my sleep to read at bedtime. What prompted my OP is that I just finished a heartwarming read and was looking for something good to start on. Seeing a list of what you've all been reading is a good place to start looking. I'd already been thinking about "Snowball" that gina w mentioned above. I may download a chapter on the Kindle to check it out. Do any of you have other suggestions on how to approach starting a thread?

I check it nearly every day....a couple of years ago I had heard a reading from a book on the car radio, but could not catch name or the author. So I went to RP, described the part that I had heard, and was told it was Saturday, by Ian McEwan. I found the book, and loved it. I was so happy that someone could steer me in the right direction.

Welcome cristin, We are a friendly bunch. Our love of books and reading brings us together as reading is such a solitary hobby. Here in RP, we can discuss and chat and ask questions. You mentioned being worried about sounding silly or naive, please do not. We are not literary scholars. We are bibliophiles. Plain and simple. What drew US here is exactly what drew YOU here. Glad to have you onboard. You'll find that each of us has our favorite genres and are willing to try any book that sounds good be it classic, classic mystery, brand new fiction or non-fiction or anything in-between. My BEST advice would be to get a small notebook to keep next to the computer so you always have a handy spot to write down the titles and authors that grab you on this site. Otherwise, you'll have dozens of scraps of paper all over the place. PAM - who signs in all caps because there are about three or four Pam's on this site.