Book recomendations?
 

I have to do this from time to time to jump start me into authors I haven't read or ones I've maybe never heard of. Some of my favorite authors are Iles, Follett, King, Pears, Deaver, Preston/Child, Archer, Brown, and Flynn...

Some authors I'm considering...

Wilbur Smith
Stephen Baxter (as a sidetrack into scifi...I've read some Robert Sawyer)
James Rollins
John Jakes (North and South or the Kent family stuff)

Any suggestions with these or others that might be similar to writers I like?

Ok, this is completely outside of your author scope, but I highly recommend Blind Side by Michael Lewis. It's a true football story that encapsulates all the high school recruiting drama along with inner city kid goes to all white school tensions in the south.

Excellent read. I'm a big Michael Lewis fan going back to Liars Poker, but most people here would recognize him as the author of Moneyball.

Moneyball was a good book. Really enjoyed it. I've seen this book from Lewis and might pick it up when it comes out in paperback.

Excellent book by Lewis. I enjoyed it as much as Moneyball. Try Librarything.com/ you can put in the books you own, or enjoy and it will give you recommendations.

I hear Harry POTTER IS GOOD

dola- Cross by James Patterson was good

I'll second (or third or whatever) the recommendation on Blind Side. Actually pretty much anything he writes is good (try Liar's Poker for a non-sports one).

Well, if you're willing to stray away from your usual thrillers, here's a book I recently finished, and loved:

The Bear Went Over the Mountain, by William Kotzwinkle.

Very, very funny social satire. I read one review that called it an "adult fairy tale" and I totally agree. I really loved it.





But, then again, I rather disliked The Blind Side, so I might be a bit out of step around here.

*shrug* I read the first two chapters of Blind Side and stopped. I'll probably get back to it at some point.

I just finished reading The Straw Men by Michael Marshall. I guess if thrillers are your thing, you might like it. I didn't, and it was basically the first "thriller" I've read.

A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli is a pretty...messed up book. I really enjoyed it. The main character essentially drifts between dreaming, halucinations and the real world, most of the time you're not really sure which "world" he's in.

And it's been mentioned before, but World War Z by Max Brooks is a really good zombie novel.

I didn't care for Blind Side at all.

Blind Side was OK, but it definitely wasn't my favorite of Lewis's books. In fact, I'm not sure it cracks the Top 5.

The Straw Men was a sequel. Did you read the prequel? Maybe it was the first in the series but I thought it was.

No, it was the first (and his first book). The Straw Men was first, The Upright Man is the second one and then there's a third one. (Looked it up, "Blood of Angels"). I'm sure The Upright Man is a sequal, maybe Blood of Angels is a prequal. Whatever the case, The Straw Men was the first book Marshall published.

It read...a little too much like a novelization of a movie, if that makes any sense. Maybe all thrillers are like that.

Everyone should read "Liar's Poker" - easily Lewis' best book.

I can't in good conscience recommend any thriller authors. I'm dumping most of my non-Grisham legal thrillers as it is.. and I'm not familiar with the rest of the authors you list to give recommendations in a similiar vein.

Thriller: John D. MacDonald

If you liked anything about the Da Vinci Code, you might like The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry. It is loosely Da Vinci Code like, but it ready like it was written by an actual adult. Not every chapter ends in a cliffhanger and there are complex sentences and everything.

If you are really sold on the mystery genre, but have an interest in drifting more toward literature than fluff... try James Lee Burke. He's a fabulous writer, mostly writing detective novels, but they are great. Maybe pick up a copy of Black Cherry Blues, one of my favorites.

Skip John Jakes and go straight to Michener, unless you like the heaving bosom, soap opera stuff. Michener's historical fiction is better researched and not set to a formula, as was Jakes's Kent Family Comicals. Hawaii or The Source are good books to start with.

Colleen McCullough's Masters or Rome series was my vacation reading in 2002-3 and was a lot of fun. Some (my mother) complain that the Roman names are hard to follow. The first in the series is The First Man in Rome.

It's tough to classify something as a thriller in my opinion. I guess I would put Deaver in that thriller/mystery category and would tell you his books are much better. Preston and Child would be thrillers and their books would be much better as well.

I've debated "The Source" and "The First Man in Rome" for a couple months now actually.

If you're looking for something in the non-fiction area, I recently read both The Powers That Be by David Halberstam and The Kingdom and the Glory by Gay Talese and enjoyed both quite a bit.

If you're looking for non-fiction, but something a little bit different, I recommend both collections of famous Chicago journalist Mike Royko's columns, which are great even if you're not from Chicago. They're also nice to have in case you have a lot of little gaps in your day, since each colun is a pretty quick read. Also Sports Illustrated great Gary Smith has a collection of his stories that's pretty good.

Btw, anyone who's looking for sci-fi - I'm basically down to one author at this point who doesn't drive me nuts with amateurish writing - Iain M. Banks. A real fun read overall.

Greg Keyes.

Here's another one I'm considering if anyone's read him...Nelson DeMille

If you haven't read any Krakauer, I highly recommend him. Into the Blue and Into the Wild in particular are great man vs. nature tales.

As a second-hand recommendation - my fiance really enjoyed Wilbur Smith. Can't really tell you why or anything like that, but she did ;).

Stop debating and take the plunge :) Both are worth the time.

yes, I'd recommend a book.

Plum Island and the follow up (Lion's something) were good. The lead character is a smart ass prick ... hard not to like him. The TWA crash (nightfall?) has the same character, but it wasn't as good IMO.

Gold coast was interesting, but depressing as hell.

I read the Nightfall book and had the same opinion as you. I liked the character a lot but the story didn't grab me. Good to know the others might be better.

It really has nothing to do with the topics you asked about, but for everybody out there, Drew Curtis' book on Fark is actually quite decent (and amusing).

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-F...1180639&sr=8-1

/tk

I have pimped Rudy Rucker here several times before. One of the few sci fi writers I consider an automatic purchase. The Hacker and the Ants and Frek and the Elixir are great examples of his more recent work, and Master of Space and Time or Software are early books that earned him an honored place among the cyberpunks.

Re: First Man In Rome. It's definitely a sprawling epic and I'll admit it, I had to re-start it several times, but when I finally finished it, I was happy I got all the way through, as it's an extremely enjoyable read.

Plus, there's more in the series after that :)

If you like mystery/thrillers, try:

Carl Hiaasson
Tim Dorsey (Hiasson on LSD)
Both write about Florida scum

Archer Mayor (takes place in Vermont)

If you like the art world mysteries of Ian Pears, try the Lovejoy novels of Jonathan Gash. They were made into a good BBC TV series, too.

Or you might want to try some old time greats:
Graham Greene (not the religious novels he won a Nobel for)
Edmund Crispin

Science Fiction

None better than the great Jack Vance. I picked up his three volume fantasty triology "Lyonesse" in a Charlottesville used book shop and its still better than Jordan or Martin. Cugel's Saga books are terrific, as are the Five Demon Princes novels.