Ooohhh....I love good Reads...I hope you enjoy it.

I checked very quickly and didn't see these mentioned. Lois McMaster Bujold has a new series out, part 3 just was published. The series is called The Sharing Knife. Part 1 is Beguilement, part 2 is Legacy and part 3 is Legacy. It's a romance and it does remind me of Twilight in that these two characters should not be together, but they can't fight fate, they are meant to be together. I like Lois because she uses humor and her characters don't take themselves too seriously most of the time. Another is Tamora Pierce - her Alanna series is great. Originally meant for teenagers, but a good story. Lots of hers are great and multi volume which help make the enjoyment last. I'm anxious to read Enchantement, Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow by Card are some more favorites. I'm a librarian, recommending books is an occupational hazard!!

the very first book i read after eclipse is 'eragon' by christopher paolini, on the recommendation of a male friend who i convinced to read the twilight series. surprisingly, i liked the book! (i never saw the movie version) i'm looking forward to reading the second book in the trilogy.

ps. my friend was very skeptical of twilight at the start, but he ended up loving the series, by the way

I loved Eragon, but my friends that are die hard Star Wars fans, tell me it is a rip off of that story line.......Star wars was never my thing so I'll admit that I never really noticed. I own both Eragon and Eldest by this author.

I'd heard and read interviews about the writing of the series. When Chris Paolini was in high school, he wanted to honor his favorite books by Tolkien and Lewis and that genre so he made up his own story based on his favorites. There's a great article from Tamora Pierce's website with an interview with her and Paolini and Pullman. Here's a link to the podcast
http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/3ps/

I love Tamora Pierce, I think I own all of her books. I highly recommend them especially the Lioness Rampant series and The Immortals series. For those of you Jacob fans out there Wolf Speaker which is her second book in The Immortals series gives good insight into the minds of a wolf pack.

http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-speaker-Immo ... 745&sr=8-1

I also highly recommend The Call Of The Wild by Jack London a classic, I think it was written in 1903 or there around. I just finished reading it today it only took about 3 or 4 hours to read the whole thing its not too long. But for those of you who love the wildness of the wolves or animals in general it's a must read. It is written from a dog's point of view (eventually he joins with wolves) and is very different from anything I have read before.

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Wild-Jack-Lo ... 773&sr=1-2

well, i am a big star wars fan (i've seen the movies so many times, and i have about 20-plus star wars books, the different novels on the various events following the last movie, episode VI), but i was never reminded of star wars the time that i was reading it. if anything, i saw certain parallelisms with LOTR (which i also love, by the way). although in itself, eragon is a book worth reading and enjoying. i'll be starting on 'eldest' soon.

wow, he's also a tolkien fan? funny that i mentioned LOTR in my post above before even reading your post, suelibevg.

i haven't really read much on christopher paolini. i guess i'd better familiarize myself with him more. thanks for this link.

Oh, I LOVE Good Reads and have become totally addicted. It is a great place to get book recommendations by seeing what others have read and how they rate them. I have a huge list of "to-read" books now from these boards and from good reads.

Whew! I finally made it through the 20something pages!

I must agree with the couple of posts about The Historian by Elizabeth Kostovo. I loved that book...first vampire book I have read, followed by Twilight. More on the history of vampiric legend woven with fiction.

Any book by Jodi Picoult is my favourite; I own all of them! Her books always involve the court system where someone stands on trial for something. Her stories will allow you to explore what your take is on moral issues. A few of books at a glance:
Plain Truth--WARNING THIS CAN BE UPSETTING: this involves a mysterious death of a newborn in an Amish community; explores how an Amish community deals with crime and wrongdoings in their community compared to the way we deal with it.
Keeping Faith--explores the the belief system of what "faith" really is: religious? personal? faith in good of others?
My Sister's Keeper--Asks the moral and ethical question of having another child, for the purpose of harvesting healthy cells, to save another child who is dying? WARNING: gets sad

And because I work with special needs population and education:
Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

I really loved The Historian.. that is one of my favorites.. I read it before I read Twilight.. i also loved The Memory Keeper's Daughter.. that one is very good and I like anything from Francine Rivers.

I haven't had a chance to see the musical but I dragged myself through the book and I didn't like it.

My other none Meyer bustest books to read (and revamp) would be
Enders Game and Enders Shadow by Orson Scott card (I haven't read the other book in the series thought that they would take away from my image)
Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood (This is the only Atwood book I have read I have heard that the rest are a not great but Handmaids tale is great)
1984 by George Orwell (it's way better then the standard high school read Animal Farm)

Ok if you can't tell I'm a dystopian fiction fan but they are all books that I go everywhere cluching like a crazy woman they are that good.

You might want to consider trying Atwood's Oryx and Crake.

I liked Penelope by Atwood. It's really short, though, so it can be read in an afternoon. It's the retelling of Ulysses's return form Penelope's POV.

I don't know if this has already been suggested, but Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series is incredible. The world Kim has created is brilliant, and it's clear that she's done some serious work setting up the "rules" for her world. One note on this series: be warned that this series is NOT YA. It is much more suggestive, and some of the sex scenes are graphic. Not tasteless, but definitely steamy, hot, and sexy!

Also, another great series to read after Twilight is Jim Butcher's Dresden Files.