Recommend me: Adventure book.

I’m in the mood for a well written adventure.

What is the first rollicking good yarn that pops into your mind, any genre.

If you’ve never read Treasure Island, I recommend the heck out of that. It earns every inch of its reputation.

For that matter, so do a lot of the other classics, including The Three Musketeers, Kidnapped!, and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Also King Solomon’s Mines and The Lost World. (Conan Doyle’s version, not Michael Crichton’s). For more modern authors you could try Desmond Bagley (**High Citadel ** particularly and **The Vivero Letter **, Hammond Innes and Wilbur Smith.

I’ll add some of my favs.
Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch Fantasyish.

Here, be dragons 1st book in series. (teen)

In addition to King Solomon’s Mines, there is also Alan Quatermain and She, all written by H. Ryder Haggard. Quatermain was the long-ago precursor to (and probably the inspiration for) Indiana Jones. Also, try some of the old Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

If you want real-life adventure, I can recommend some of those, also.

This is a favorite of mine, too! I don’t know of any other con-artist novel that works this well (and yes, I’ve read Dortmunder).

But there’s another idea. Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books are about a nebbishy thief, the idiots he works with, and the deliciously evil assholes he robs. They’re pretty fun. What’s the Worst That Could Happen? is probably my favorite; it’s set in Las Vegas to very good effect. It bears tangential resemblance to Lies of Locke Lamora.

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. A young boy goes on an adventure (though two dimensions) in a desperate attempt to find a cure for his single mom’s soon-to-be fatal illness.

If you’re in the mood for a non-fiction adventure, I highly recommend Laura Hillenbrand’s recent Unbroken, the tale of an Olympic runner-turned-American soldier who is shot down over the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. It’s very brutal at times, but the story contains more jaw-dropping twists and turns than any fiction tale I’ve ever read.

Endurance- Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

The Ice Limit, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child was lots of fun. It’s about a huge meteorite that lands on a remote island. Scientists of course want to study it but quickly discover that messing with it, …well no spoilers. It’s a page turner, though.

Beat me to it.

Real Life is always more engaging than made up stuff. You won’t believe that it’s not made up.

The Thirty Nine Steps, or any of it’s sequels.

Agree. It’s an incredible story of survival and endurance.

Titan by John Varley (science fiction) and Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly (fantasy).

The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye.

The Dragonstone, by Dennis L. McKiernan .

Picked up an audiobook at the library by Hammond Innes. A couple minutes into it I said out loud “Wow, it’s a good ol’ fashioned Adventure Book!”

I’d recommend The Doomed Oasis or The Strode Venturer, and a dozen others.

It ends up in science fiction territory, but TimeFall by James Kahn starts out as a rollicking jungle expedition tale.

Aside from a few personal favorites that have already been mentioned (Dumas, Doyle, Stephenson, etc), I’d recommend:

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett: Historical fiction at it’s finest. Admittedly, it’s easy to get lost in the byzantine plots and all the myriads of characters, but it’s well worth it. The fourth book in the series features one of my favorite duels between the hero and the villain I’ve ever seen in any work of fiction.

Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian: Another awesome historical fiction series. I’m only on the third book so far, but this one has already become one of my personal favorites.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart: Excellent fantasy set in an Ancient China that never was, it tells the tale of Number Ten Ox and Master Li and their quest to find a magical root that can save the children of the former’s village. The book is filled with adventure and a sense-of-wonder and is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read.

Oh, and pretty much everything I’ve read by Rafael Sabatini is well worth a look as well.

The Captain Alatriste series by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is said to be very good.