Can anyone suggest a good book.

I'm reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky for at least the 4th time. All of the great Russian writers wrote passions and gave great looks inside the heads of their characters which is fabulously enlightening. Anything by Neal Stephenson is great if you're looking for a modern writer.
 
Just finished "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown (of Da Vinci Code fame). Eminently readable and well researched thriller. Much better book than The Da Vinci Code which it preceded. They should have made this one into a movie instead.
 
One of the most riveting books I ever read was Headhunter by Michael Slade.
I read some other of his; but nothing ever came close to that one.

Read it about 20 years ago and it still sticks in my mind as one of the best ever.
 
rifon2 said:
One of the most riveting books I ever read was Headhunter by Michael Slade.
I read some other of his; but nothing ever came close to that one.

Read it about 20 years ago and it still sticks in my mind as one of the best ever.
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Yep, Slade put out some junk, but Headhunter was a great read. It made me cringe a few times, and that's hard to do...:thumbup:
 
Greg Iles. "The Quiet Game" and "Black Cross" are both good reads, IMO.
Both are stories about typical guys in atypical situations.
I also enjoy Ludlums books, but so far most or all are about former spies and whatnot doing spy things. I want to see a book with an average Joe mixed up in the spy stuff, figuring it all out as he goes along.
 
rifon2 said:
One of the most riveting books I ever read was Headhunter by Michael Slade.
I read some other of his; but nothing ever came close to that one.

Read it about 20 years ago and it still sticks in my mind as one of the best ever.
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I read that years ago. Good book. Messed up, and not always in a good way.

Frank
 
Just about anything by Stephen Hunter, especially Dirty White Boys.

The 20-book Aubrey & Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian, beginning with Master & Commander. Napoleonic War action with the Royal Navy, and two of the most fascinating characters ever committed to paper.

Two SF books by my favourite author in that genre, Keith Roberts: Pavane and The Chalk Giants. Alternative history at its best.

Denis Winter's excellent books about the Great War: The First of the Few, and Death's Men: Soldiers of the Great War.

Watchers by Dean Koontz. Much of his stuff is pretty tepid, but I love this one.

maximus otter
 
Anything by Frederick Forsyth, the inventer of the modern techno novel long before Tom Clancy. Try Forsyth's Day of the Jackal for an especially taught thriller. In that vein, Clancy's early novels are good, but he became too full of himself along about the time he wrote Debt of Honor, although that novel is scarily prescient.

If you like science fiction, you might wish to try Isaac Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy", which many consider to be the greatest s-f ever written. It may not be that, but it comes awfully close. Actually, any s-f by Asimov is well worth the read, as is almost any s-f by Robert Heinlein, Roger Zelazney, Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, Harry Harrison, Harry Turtledove*, S.M. Stirling**, and Frank Herbert.

There is another rather fascinating s-f series that is currently evolvoing and growing rather like kudzu. It is Eric Flint's 1632 series about a 1999 or so West Virginia coal mining town that is picked up and moved back in time to 1632 Thuringia, Germany, smack in the middle of the Thirty Years War. Flint has published about three books of his own on it and two or three collections of short stories by fans that are set in that alternate history. The whole thing is really a fascinating study. And frequently quite funny, as Flint has a very light touch.

* Turtledove's specialty is alternate history, a sort of study of what would have happened if you change some key event in history.

** Stirling does much the same, but one of his series, the Draka series, is very, very grim in the extreme.
 
FullerH said:
* Turtledove's specialty is alternate history, a sort of study of what would have happened if you change some key event in history.
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I'm particulary fond of "Guns of the South" myself! :D:D
 
WOW! Thanks for all the replys. I wrote down a bunch and I'm heading to the good old public biblio this afternoon.
 
I like a lot of the recommendations, but I don't think Dan Brown is really in the same class as 'Clockwork Orange' :), and it doesn't sound like sci-fi is your cup of tea (love the genre, love Asimov and Herbert, hate Heinlein. But people who like Ayn Rand seem to like him).

It does sound like you would like Chuck Pahulniuk (sp? can never get it right) and Catch-22.

I assume you've read the great dystopian classics by Orwell and Huxley?
 
ThreeWorlds said:
I like a lot of the recommendations, but I don't think Dan Brown is really in the same class as 'Clockwork Orange' :), and it doesn't sound like sci-fi is your cup of tea (love the genre, love Asimov and Herbert, hate Heinlein. But people who like Ayn Rand seem to like him).

It does sound like you would like Chuck Pahulniuk (sp? can never get it right) and Catch-22.

I assume you've read the great dystopian classics by Orwell and Huxley?
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Perhaps because Rand and Heinlein share a libertarian political philosophy.
 
FullerH said:
* Turtledove's specialty is alternate history, a sort of study of what would have happened if you change some key event in history.

.
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I've enjoyed a lot of Turtledoves books also, but what about Philip K Dicks Man in the High Castle for an alternative history book?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle


Also, Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep, the book that Bladerunner is based on...
 
Stephen Ambrose has written some great WWII histories, I'd try Band of Brothers or Pegasus Bridge before delving into D-Day and Citizen Soldiers.

James Ellroy's "LA Quartet" novels are terrific, I like White Jazz best of all.

Elmore Leonard can be uneven, but when he is on he really spins a yarn. Cuba Libre is a favorite, one of his better books that has yet to make it onto film.

My current favorite SF author (besides Stephenson) is Richard K. Morgan, his Broken Angels is probebly his best.
 
Silenthunterstudios, I have recommended that book so many times that I think that I have worn it out. It is one of the great classics of s-f. I generally love Dick's work. Have you ever read any or Ron Goulart's work? It is sort of black humor in s-f. Another author who I enjoy is the late Keith Laumer. His Retief stories are classics of s-f humor as well as being great space opera. Just think, Jaime Retief, two-fisted representative extraordinaire of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, the CDT. Laumer had been a Foreign Service officer and it showed.
 
So many great suggestions here. If you like the James Lee Burke (and you will) also check out Dennis LeHane, Robert Crais and John Connoly. The Connoly books, especially are really dark. Of course, theres always Lawrence Block and Robert Parker.

I also second the Hiaason books. Great stuff.

I've read everything by all these guys; Boy I wish I could have the pleasure of discovering them again for the first time!
 
FullerH said:
Silenthunterstudios, I have recommended that book so many times that I think that I have worn it out. It is one of the great classics of s-f. I generally love Dick's work. Have you ever read any or Ron Goulart's work? It is sort of black humor in s-f. Another author who I enjoy is the late Keith Laumer. His Retief stories are classics of s-f humor as well as being great space opera. Just think, Jaime Retief, two-fisted representative extraordinaire of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne, the CDT. Laumer had been a Foreign Service officer and it showed.
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In addition to the two I mentioned, I read one and forget the name of it. Pretty xenophobic book, if you ask me, but it was about a man who gained a cult following, while alien blobs were showing up on rooftops, in alleys etc. Harmless, but they built a wall around the Earth so that we couldn't hurt anymore of their kind. An interesting book, I'm going to have to find out the title now. The World Jones Made.

Another author to mention is William Gibson, I'll post some of his books, cyberpunk that is becoming more probable with every passing year. I've been on a history, autobiography and biography roll lately, I'll make a list of those when I get home.

One of my favorites that I've read over and over again has to be Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton, very interesting plot, basis for the movie the 13TH Warrior.

Another one that spawned a film is this grandeur account, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo by Liutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson. Another very good book. Of course, it doesn't pan out like the movie, but I would tend to believe this guy ;).


Last but not least for now, I have to recommend some Stephen King books. I've gotten rid of most of my King books, but these are my favorites. Cycle of the Werewolf, mainly for Bernie Wrightsons artwork. The Stand, a very good book, Kings epic. The Wastelands, the best book in the Darktower series, all of the Darktower novels that came afterwards couldn't touch this one.
 
The thing about Carl Hiaasen is that you eed to remember that he comes at any given subject from about 20 degrees off dead center so that his point of view is not quite what you would expect unless you are familiar with his writing. In Storm Warning he suggests a new use for Snoop Doggy Dogg CDs, as suppositories. Ouch!
 
I am a big Rand and Heinlein freak and feel that every 10 or 12 years or so I have to go back and read everything they wrote.

There is a series of books that I enjoyed by Steven R. Donaldson (The Chronicals of Thomas Covenant). Once I got through the first one that lays the foundation of the characters the next five books were totally addicting. Don't hear much about that 6 book series.
 
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