One author, two books. One you love, one you hate

Yes! I bought everything Follett wrote up until The Third Twin, and I haven’t read a word of his since. Total crapola, that was.

One of my favorite books of all time is Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews, but I haven’t been able to get more than a few pages into anything else he’s written.

The only prolific writer who hasn’t disappointed me is David L. Martin, and he’s written literary-type stuff as well as thrillers. It’s all different, and all good.

Tim Powers.

Book I loved: The Drawing of the Dark.

Book I hated: Every other single word he set to print.

Isabel Allende.

Of Love and Shadows moved me and addressed issues I’d never seen addressed in fiction before. Loved it. So much I plan to read it again, only in Spanish.

The Infinite Plan? Yes, Isabel, we GET. IT. You live in America now, proven by paragraph upon paragraph which only purpose seems to be demonstrating that you can “develop” American characters. Trying too too hard. Distracting. Frustrating. Never made it through the book.

Brett Easton Ellis

American Psycho: Genius. Everything else he’s ever written, not so much, but The Informers and Glamorama sucked especially hard.

Chuck Palahniuk

Fight Club: Brilliant. Choke: ass.

John Crowley.

I passionately love “Little, Big” and have read it about once a year for the past 15, but have never managed to get more than a few dozen pages into anything else he’s written.

Also, I eagerly await just about everything Barbara Mertz writes as Elizabeth Peters, particularly her Amelia Peabody books, but cannot manage a single book she’s written as Barbara Michaels - they just bore me to death.

And Tim Powers - love “The Drawing of the Dark” and “On Stranger Tides”, can’t abide any of his others.