Whenever I’m in a pickle with one of my academic coaching clients, I often turn to my Facebook friends. Such a smart and savvy group; rarely do they fail me.

Last week a client revealed that during her entire high school career, she has not read a single book for pleasure! “I don’t even know what genre I like to read,” she said sadly.

After a little more questioning, I posted the following on my Facebook profile:

Before the end of the school day, over 57 book suggestions from 23 friends flooded my Facebook account! My client was thrilled, and I was too. Here’s the list in full, with occasional commentary (apologies in advance for any spelling mistakes; my friends may be brilliant, but they make the occasional spelling mistakes). Happy reading, ya’ll!

• Watership Down
• Book of the Dun Cow
• Tender Morsels. “Very dark and VERY intense themes.”
• Lionel Shriver – Game Control and/or The Female of the Species
• Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin. “Dense but chalk full of beautiful worlds, fascinating characters and interesting mysticism.”
• Life of Pi
• Another Roadside Attraction
• Their Eyes were Watching God
• The Bean Trees
• Slaughterhouse 5 (or other Vonnegut)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey;
• Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories by Orson Scott Card.
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• The Ink Series (InkHeart, InkSpell, and InkDeath)
• The Books of Ember (City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, and The Diamond of Darkhold)
• The Dark Matter Series (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.)
• Warrior Woman by Maxine Hong Kinston.  “I love how she weaves stories together across continents. it’s adventure, identity, searching, dreams, fantasy, san francisco.”
• Dresden Files
• True Blood
• The Red Tent
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• The Mists of Avalon
• The Autobiography of Henry VIII
• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel
• Anne McCaffrey, Dragonriders of Pern, and all the rest of the Pern series.
• Clan of the Cave Bear by Jane Auel. “This series totally engrossed me when I read them!”
• The Art of Racing in the Rain. “Since she likes animal stories.”
• Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover books.
• The Book Thief  by Marcus Zusak. “Even tho’ it’s adult, it’s written from the point of view of a young girl AND it was recommended to me by a (precocious!) 12-year old girl. The writing is tremendous, and the human spirit, for me, rises way above the pain.”
• Hunger Games. ” One of the best I’ve read in a while–it’s a trilogy and only the first two have been release yet.”
• Marley and Me.
• Eragon series.  “a really good fantasy story with a very cool dragon. Can’t wait to dive into the next installment.”
• Hawkmistress by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
• The Alchemyst (Book 1 of 6 book series) by Michael Scott
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan,Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief series. ” The books bear NO resemblance to the horrible movie. The books are much better.
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
• American Born Chinese (graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang)
• The Eternal Smile (graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang)
• The Gunslinger by Stephen King
• Lovely Bones
• The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor,
• Son Of Witch part of the Wicked series
• Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

Phew! That’s a lot. But I bet ya’ll know even more. Feel free to comment additional book suggestions.