When it comes to reading, what is your "guilty pleasure"?

I don’t feel guilty about reading YA. I do feel extremely ashamed that I still enjoy romance novels. The bad ones. Can’t help it, I eat them like candy.

Mysteries: Joan Hess, Jane Haddam, Donna Andrews, etc.

Probably the Jack Reacher books. They’re so ridiculously mindless and formulaic, but I can’t help myself. He’s a complete bad-ass, is incredibly smart, operates completely above the law with no consequences, and absolutely nothing stops him, so the stakes are hilariously low.

Reacher drifts into a location while aimlessly hitchhiking or busing across the US. Says nothing. Decides to get involved after perceiving some wrong. Sleeps with a gorgeous good woman. Figures out who the bad guys are. Kills them all, in the most straight-forward way possible. Leaves.

I usually read SF/fantasy with a bit of non-fiction science and history thrown in but every now & then I crave a ‘giant killer ???’ book - ??? being some weird genetic mutation or undiscovered species.

Giant killer earthworms you say? deal me in. Rampaging bigfoot? I’m there. Rampaging *crack-addicted *bigfoot - Oh, hell yes!

Usually short, stupid and full of inventive (and bloody) ways that the one-dimensional ‘characters’ will meet their doom.

[QUOTE=Patton]
I love it. God help me I do love it so.
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Are you sure you haven’t read “Vixen 03,” because you just described it down to a “T.” :slight_smile:

I wasn’t aware of step 3, but it DOES explain a few things.

“Raise the Titanic” was a fun book but a sucky movie. A durn shame. Plus, it’s all for naught now that J. Cameron, et al, “exposed” all the Titanic secrets.

Lew Grade’s comment about the making of that movie was “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic”.

+1 :smiley:

John D. Macdonald’s Travis McGee novels; Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels; everything by Ross Thomas, though no guilt over that; my old Doonesbury collections.

The Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore. A lot of the writing is fairly pedestrian, but every now and then, he really impresses me.

Me too but more the Dr Suess and Little Golden Books style stuff. Looking on those more “first reader” things from the late 50s/early 60s is just flat-out fun sometimes.

One of my favorite lines in all of English is from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (and I don’t know if this is in the book or just the TV version):

Then the Grinch did the same to the other Who’s houses
Leaving crumbs much too small for the other Who’s mouses.
(apologies for the punctuation)

Those two lines tell 80% of the total story. I find that neat! :smiley:

I love space opera and military science fiction. And I love long series, even when they are a bit cheesy to some.

If I’m laid up with a cold, for instance, and don’t want to read anything challenging, I enjoy curling up with a box of Puffs Plus and what is called a cozy mystery. Growing up an avid Agatha Christie fan, I got a taste for little old ladies solving small town mysteries.

I also enjoy mystery series, such as Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon stories or Sue Grafton’s alphabet books.

I love the Maggody books; unfortunately she seems to have abandoned the series.

Are you embroiled in the Safehold series, as I am?

The “Alan Lewrie” series of Napoleonic naval adventures by Dewey Lambdin. (Someone else here on the SDMB mentioned them, and I’ve gotten hooked.

They’re a bloody soap opera…and I adore 'em!

Oh yeah. I’m also still involved in the Honor Harrington series from him as well, plus at least one of the spin offs. I wish he’d focus more on the Safehold series though, since I’m dying to see how it plays out and where he’s going with it. :slight_smile:

Aye, me too. The wait between books is getting longer and longer. At this point, I’m not sure how many books he’s gonna need to wind it down, to be honest. I could totally see 6 or 7 more books to this series, at the pace he progresses the story.

Trixie Belden. Wow I loved those!

Yeah, could be a lot more. Look at his Honor Harrington series…it’s still going with no end in sight. He just keeps shifting the war to something else. Next up after Mesa goes down…ALIENS! :stuck_out_tongue:

I do wish he’s concentrate on this series though as I’d like to see him get it to at least the end of the war, which would be at least 4-5 books I think.