It really depends on what you are into;
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain,
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Prey series by John Sanford
Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Creighton, way better than the movies
The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver
As someone mentioned earlier any of the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum books (great sense of humor)
Yes, I have – Davies is so damn clever. I’ve never read anything like that. The Fifth Business is my favorite so far.
The Clarke book is incredibly slow. There’s very little tension, and I’m itching for something to happen. If it weren’t so funny, I’d just go on to something else.
Lessee…
Over the Labor Day holiday I finished Eragon, by Paolini. It’s fantasy that’s enjoyable, but highly derivative and predictable - probably due to the youth of the author. But it was enjoyable enough and a quick read.
Lately I’ve reread Harry Potter books 5 and 4, which are always fun. I love Ron.
Ran through Nicholas Sparks’s Nights in Rodanthe Saturday night, which is a weepy chick book that I enjoyed. Nothing too heavy, and it’s a good quick read for an evening. But rather sad.
Right now I’m on another chick book, Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landvik, which feels very much like Fried Green Tomatoes without the flashbacks and set in Minneapolis. Like the others, it’s pretty lightweight but interesting enough to keep my attention.
I’ve got a huge book list, but up in the queue is Shogun (if I can just get myself to start the thing) and hopefully The Grass Crown by McCullough, maybe something by Tim Powers, and of course, Stephen King’s new one about Roland. Gotta get to the bookstore.
Took my standard style of ‘classic’ along for the recent vacation…still working on it.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Tough read. HBS’s ‘enlightened’ view of the slave issue is so full of racist presumptions (blacks are a ‘simple, spiritual, unambitious people’) that she’d be shunned in modern society. It’s astonishing how far we’ve come.
Wabi-Sabi (For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren
From the Introduction:
It can be read in one sitting and reread and pondered many times over a lifetime.
I recently finished A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Young adult novel about girls in a boarding school who dabble in the supernatural. I think it could have been better, but it did keep me interested throughout. I was happy with it.
I also read Good Grief, by Lolly Winston. Light, but again, I was interested enough to wipe it out in about two sittings.
As for non-fiction, I’m nearing the end of When Dad Hurts Mom: helping your children heal the wounds of witnessing abuse, by Lundy Bancroft. I don’t know that I’ve found anything specific I can use, but it does have a lot of good information on various related topics, should you be in such a situation.
I’m also waiting for The Grim Grotto and the new Dark Tower book.
Dang! After S,D,&CP I went to the bookstore twice to get Fargo Rock City and they were out both times. It’s on my Amazon wish list & I’ll get it in the next few weeks. Thanks for the suggestion.
I’m reading Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light)
I also just bought the just released Hitchcock Signature Collection dvd set and I find that the book makes a great companion to the set.
Finagle, I read A Distant Mirror this summer and also found it fascinating. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. The part about the two competing popes (one a mass murderer and one just plain crazy) blew my mind. Which of these guys was infallible?
Right now, I’m reading The Three Musketeers. Very fun.