Do you read a lot? Do you haunt libraries and book stores and garage sales? Have you ever finished your standard set of authors and felt doubtful about who you should begin next? Have you ever spent a nice pile of money on a few seemingly promising books only to discover that they were l’ultimate crappe? Have you ever wondered if there are some really excellent books out there that you’re missing out on just because they didn’t have the magical Nobel/Booker/WhatsitAward label on them? Have you ever looked at Amazon’s suggestion list and thought “What utter balderdash!”?
I have. If you’ve ever felt the same way, this is thread for you.
What to do:
[ul][li]Post the names of a few of your favourite authors, and/or…[/li][li]Post as specific a genre classification as you want (e.g. “Romances-Victorian-Dead Heroine”, or “Inspirational Books about Poodles”)[/li][li]Make suggestions to help other posters out.[/li][li]Hope that someone suggests stuff to help you out.[/ul][/li]
Let me start:
I’ve loved Graham Greene, Kazuo Ishiguro, Evelyn Waugh, Rohinton Mistry, Frank McCourt, and some Salman Rushdie, to name a few.
Who else could I look into?
//Selfish: Even if this thread drops like rock, I so hope I’ll end up with a few suggestions first!!
I don’t have any suggestions for you but I’d like to take advantage of the idea to get some for myself.
**Authors I love: **
Fiction: Harry Turtledove; Peter David; Orson Scott Card (his sci-fi only); Greg Bear; Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens; Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Katheryn Rusch; and A.C. Crispin.
Nonfiction: Jared Diamond. (I read mostly sci-fi… can you tell?)
Genres and Subject Matter I love:
Alternative History; Science Fiction; Anthropology; European and World History
After years of reading nothing but non-fiction, I have recently started reading Fictionalized Biography/Historical Fiction, and I’ve found a few great reads.
Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen’s Fool both set in Tudor England (my favorite time period.) Wonderfully rich in detail, Gregory also makes these historical figures come alive. They’re not great literature, but they’re very fun reads.
Jean Plaidy. She wrote dozens of fictionalized biographies of England’s royals, some of which are now being reprinted. I wasn’t expecting much when I learned that Plaidy was the pen name for Victoria Holt, a romance author. (And most of the Plaidy books I have found in used book stores have been in the romance section.) But they’re enjoyable-- brain candy for the history buff.
Emma Donnaghue’s Slammerkin. I don’t know why I found this story so compelling, but I’ve read it again and again. Fans of The Crimson Petal and the White will probably like this one, though it’s much grittier and grimmer.
I’m hoping for suggestions from folks who also enjoy these genres.
Aesiron, if you like alternate history you most definitely must check out the series that starts with 1632, by Eric Flint. You know those stories in which a single person is thrust into the past/alternate timeline/whatever, and has to make their way? 1632 is the story of what happens when an “accident” sends a whole town from West Virginia smack dab into the middle of the Germanies during the Thirty Years War. Following books are 1633(co-authored by David Weber), Ring of Fire(shorter stories by several authors, including Flint, set in the same time/place), and 1634: The Galileo Affair.
For multiple timelines/universes, check out the works of H.Beam Piper. He’s been dead for four decades, but he was one of the best. Try Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. And he had a short story titled “He Walked Around the Horses”, based on an actual historical incident reported on by Charles Fort.
I recognize most of those names as Star Trek writers. Are you reading Star Trek books? Have you tried some of the early ones? (Ignore that question if you either aren’t reading Star Trek or have already read them all.) Some of the early ST books are really great explorations of some pretty diverse themes, and others are complete dreck. Many of them violate canon in some way, but that can make things more interesting.
As Baker mentioned, Eric Flint does some alternate history things (he’s at the Baen free library, too).
There’s also an author named Kage Baker who does some interesting stuff with cyborgs who live through famous times in history. I know it sounds bizarre, but check out her Company novels, perhaps, beginning with In the Garden of Iden.
I’ve been reading Patrick O’Brian and then, since my local library only has two of his books (Master and Commander and The Far Side of the World, of course) I started reading Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. I’m into any literate, believable historical fiction set post-1066 and pre-American Civil War. Any suggestions?
jsgoddess: I own and have read around 80% of the 300 or so Star Trek books published before 2002 as it was pretty much the only fiction I read from about 7th grade up until the year after I graduated highschool. I’ve branched out considerably since then but, unfortunately, I get easily overwhelmed by all the names and titles in bookstores that I never know what to try and usually just wind up picking stuff mostly at random based on a combination of the synopsis on the back cover and how appealing I find the cover art.
Needless to say, that isn’t the best method for finding quality reading material so my attempts to broaden my horizon has grown in mostly fits and spurts as I don’t have any friends in real life that like the same kind of books I do and so I can’t get suggestions and usually forget to take lists of books I’ve heard are good when I go to book stores.
And I’ve read 1632 and am about an eighth of the way through 1633 right now. I only discovered Flint in the past four months and like him despite his tendencies at aggrandizement. Thanks for the suggestion though. You too, Baker.
A fellow ST book reader. That makes me happy. I’m a TOS fan most of all. How about you?
I asked my husband about books similar to Turtledove, whom he really likes. He says, and I quote, “Nuttin’.” Then he sighed. That’s not a good sign.
I’d suggest, very cautiously, that you might like some fantasy. I don’t read SF aside from ST, and haven’t read much ST in quite some time. But I find that fantasy fills some of that same need (and, of course, some people would argue that ST is fantasy in the first place).
racinchikki, do you like mysteries at all? I know a few authors who write quite authentic feeling mysteries set in medieval England and Wales. I’m sorry that I can’t help with non-genre fiction.
I don’t necessarily like whodunnits - I read to escape, not to puzzle my mind, if you know what I mean - but if the emphasis is on story rather than clues, I’ve nothing against mysteries.
You must not read the innumerable CS Trek threads to be asking me that. At the risk of alienating a fellow fan, I must admit that I do not like TOS even the least little bit. The movies are superb and far outstrip anything TNG has offered (with the exception of First Contact, which I rank rank below ST:VI, ST:IV, and ST:II – in that order) and the novelizations of the series are, on the whole, just as good as any of the other series’ novelizations (sans New Frontier and the DS9 Relaunch, which’re both absolutely marvelous) but I can’t watch any of the original episodes for more than fifteen minutes before flipping the channel.
My personal favorite is DS9, followed by TNG, ENT, VOY, TOS, and then TAS. If the movies are included, I’d probably put them between ENT and VOY.
I have a very strong (and irrational) aversion to fantasy… even by SF authors that write both. I absolutely adore Turtledove’s and Card’s sci-fi series but cannot manage to make myself read more than a dozen pages of any of their fantasy works.
With that being said, I will read something fantastical if there is a slight veneer of scientific reasoning given though. For example, I consider Card’s “Children of the Mind” to pretty much be a fantasy novel but since he couches it all in new-age technobabble, I’m able to accept it and just enjoy the story. Same for his “Worthing Saga”, which I adore.
I have no idea what my issue is with fantasy but I just can’t get into it at all.
Margaret Frazer and Candace Robb both write mysteries, but they tend to be less puzzles than period pieces. I rarely even attempt to solve mysteries though I love to read them, so I can’t guarantee they would fit the bill.
