I like the style of michael crichton for example. and stephen king doesn't float my boat.

any recommendations?

Personally, I enjoy Hemmingway. But then again I have a fondness for the Florida Keys/Cuban life styles.
I spend the rest of my time reading technical manuals. I just finished one on basic programming and cartesian robots.

some of my favorite authors and their 'best' books, but they may not appeal to you

nabokov-lolita
safran foer-everything is illuminated
milan kundera-unbearable lightness of being
garcia marquez-100 years of solitude
albert camus- a happy death
faulkner-as i lay dying
dave eggers- heartbreaking work of staggering genius
oscar wilde- salome

etc.

unfortunately, i dont think these will appeal to most chrichton fans..

checkout chuck palahniuk(fight club) or jeffery eugenedies(virgin suicides). they are interesting writers. worth checking out if you dont like 'serious fiction' but want something a little different... and, of course, eugenedies won a pulitzer...

if you want to read hemmingway, the sun also rises is extremely good.

I. M. Banks, a fellow countryman of yours.

Phillipe Jose Farmer and his series " The Fabulous River Boat" and the title does'nt even begin to describe what lies within.....

Phillipe Jose Farmer and his series " The Fabulous River Boat" and the title does'nt even begin to describe what lies within.....

Have you read the whole series? I did and found they were really good for the first two or three but toward the end they tailed off and didn't really come to a good ending.

Wow, you guys are serious. Let me try something different.

Definitely not up to the literary level of Hemmingway and Faulkner, but if you are looking for a light read….

If you want some whacked American Florida humor, try Carl Hiaasen.

If you like spy/intrigue stuff, try Robert Ludlum (The Bourne Identity guy).

For mystery (in her earlier books) try Patricia Cornwell.

Thought of another one; "Shadow Of The Wind". Very trendy it was even advertised on the walls of Tube Stations over there a few months ago.

Yeah Geof read the whole series and can agree with you on the end of the series, but overall fantastic reading.

Just a few from off the top of one of my piles of books:

Jeffrey Deaver - The Blue Nowhere

David Morrell - Desperate Measures and others

John Case - The Genesis Code, The First Horseman and The Eighth Day

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - The Cabinet of Curiosities, Relic, Reliquary, The Ice Limit, and Mount Dragon

Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Deception Point, and Digital Fortress

Michael Crighton - Timeline and others

Ian Caldwell - The Rule of Four

Dean Koontz - Watchers and others

Michael Palmer - Silent Treatment, Natural Causes and others (mostly medical thrillers)

Can you tell I love to read? Let me know what other Authors and topics you like and I can dig through some more piles, stacks, boxes and shelves for other recommendations.

HayTay

P.S. Does anyone else read the Destroyer series created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir? A trashy, far-fetched, and quick read, I got hooked on them in high school in the '70s and have read every one of them. I know they're silly, but, they have their moments. The author(s) poke fun at almost everything; politics, entertainment, religion, fads, thugs, medicine, etc. Some are better than others, but I usually get at least one chuckle per book. And whether we admit it (or not), after reading a couple of them we start to wish we could acquire the skills of the heroes, Remo & Chiun.

If you're gonna read Farmer, try the World of Tiers series.

Literally anything by Heinlein is worth reading too.


Tiger

Check this out-
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/michael-crichton/
Cool site. It suggests other authors searched for by people who searched for Michael Crichton

My personal favorite is William Gibson. Must read if you like Vitual Reality or Cyber Punk.
Also James P. Hogan, Ian M. Banks, David Webber, Elizabeth Moon, Lois McMaster Bujold, and of course Douglas Adams

By the way Geof, I am currently (re)reading Ian M. Banks Excession His books can be tough reads, a little depressing (everyone tends to die or live misserably ever after) but very good.

haha...

as usual, my book suggestions, if anything, alienate people.

:)

haha...

as usual, my book suggestions, if anything, alienate people.

:)

I think you are just trying to impress people with your (implied) erudition. But what can you expect from someone who can tolerate sharing quarters with a physicist. :D

You should get hold of a copy of "Shadow Of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon translated from Spanish by Lucia Graves. Based on your list I think you would find this a good read.

Some good choices here. I just finished Crichton's Timeline last month. Good read.

Don't forget about Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series.
Bill

geof.

i actually really enjoy these authors. ive read most of their books. to proove i am no snob, i will make the following shocking declaration: I have attempted, and failed, to read Brothers Karzamov at least 3 times. I made it to page 60 once, and gave up.. I find it inexcusably dull. How is that for disqualifying myself for true pseudo-intellectual status?

I like books that might hold the possibility to change my life or my 'psyche'..

I also really adore unusual 'graphic novels. Stuff by Edward Gorey, Robert Crumb, Craig Thompson, etc. etc...

Is this Zafon book anything like Marquez or Borges? I really like them. Eventhough it is easy to argue they are even more dull than Brothers Karazamov...

Think this Lucia Graves is related to Robert Graves?

(Giggle) CNCzone book club.

geof.
Is this Zafon book anything like Marquez or Borges?

I have no idea never having read either of those. I normally read trashy science fiction and fantasy novels; reading the Zafon book was a momentary lapse into good taste.

[/QUOTE]Think this Lucia Graves is related to Robert Graves? [/QUOTE]

Again no idea. What did impress me about the book is that whether or not it was written in colloquial Spanish, I suspect it probably was, the translation was into colloquial English and it was very well done.

On the topic of dull dull dull try Joseph Conrad; or maybe not dull just turgid, or turbid, both apply to Lord Jim.

I also enjoy reads like "short history of nearly everything", not to be confused by "a brief history of time" which is also excellent, btw. Sci without the fi.

Intelligent sci-fi anyone? Funny intelligent sci-fi is even better. If you know who's responsible for norwegian fjords then you'll know what I'm talking about. Yes they may be childish or whatever but lately I have noticed FAAAAR too many grays in my hair so I'm having to "pull the handbrake" as it were and go back to being 10.

Funny, intelligent sci-fi... Keith Laumer and Spider Robinson come to mind. Zelazny has a very subtle humor at times also.

Crighton's Timeline is so far about the only thing of his that has impressed me at all. (mostly because of the intro)

I just now finished a Clive Cussler book; struck me as pretty much an english language Bros Karmazov. Deadly boring, and I knew what was coming all the way through, at least two to four pages in advance of where I was reading.


Tiger

thanks! :cheers:

what about "a cat in the hat" or "green eggs and ham"? Oh sorry I have a 3 year old. :D

personaly I am a scifi nut. Hienline, saberhagen, modesit, peirse anthony for a laugh (although he is more of a fantasy guy) R, aspirin, Jerry Pournelle

or if your a sadist and like to go thru bio's http://www.sfsite.com/home.htm

Ps: I love the Destroyer novels, always good for a laugh and you can polish off in an hour or so... Great stuff kinda like southpark on martial arts

If you like the destroyer, have you tried the Matt Helm series of secret agent books by Donald Hamilton? The blurb from the back of one of the books says it best: "makes James Bond look like the London fop he really is... as tough an agent as ever crushed a kidney with a crowbar". Probably the best of the cold war era "license to kill" govt agent stuff.


Tiger

geez, skipped right past your pournell reference. The Niven-Pournell collaborations are top shelf sci-fi. Bit dry in spots for my taste, but true sci-fi in that without the science there'd be no story. Footfall and The Mote in God's Eye in particular are good sci-fi, and if you want to sample something different, try their Inferno... the guys had the chutzpah to do a rewrite of Dante'. ;)

Tom Clancy´s books are usually VERY hard to stop reading.

. Hienline, saberhagen, modesit, peirse anthony for a laugh (although he is more of a fantasy guy) R, aspirin, Jerry Pournelle

Have you read Heinlein and Anthony all the way from their early stuff to recent writing? I like their early work; Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Misstress, Door Way To Summer for a light read and the Anthony fantasy based on the Mongol conquests I forget the name. But I think both of them degenerated in recent years; good plot build up but pitiful endings.

Posix,
42

Indeed. http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/03/prime_numbers_get_hitched.php

(and a cool version http://www.digitalthoughtsw.com/DTS/42/)

I've read so much I forget who does what until I see the cover or read a few lines. But, Yes I have read the early stuff (although I'm not recalling the mongol stuff).

My favorites are the ones that think the "technology" out the best and also the reprecutions (unlike star trek, who's technology is magic like but can't seem to ocomplish anything, or for that matter dosn't do hardly anything to help the people in the society) (of course I still like it but it more of a childerens story)

Dug through another stack or two...

Eric L. Harry - Society of the Mind (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061096156/sr=1-3/qid=1145674431/ref=sr_1_3/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

Piers Anthony - Macroscope (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097236708X/sr=8-1/qid=1145674250/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

George R. R. Martin - A Game of Thrones (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553588486/sr=1-1/qid=1145674593/ref=sr_1_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books) , A Clash of Kings (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553579908/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155) , A Storm of Swords (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055357342X/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155) (humor, adventure, a midget, intrigue, insanity, incest/rape/sex, betrayal, blood and gore and guts, and a generous helping of everything else)

Greg Iles - The Footprints of GOD (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743454146/sr=1-1/qid=1145674375/ref=sr_1_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

Warren Murphy & Molly Cochran - Grandmaster (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765311631/sr=1-1/qid=1145674482/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books) and Grandmaster II - High Priest (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451157982/sr=1-3/qid=1145674482/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

Hope ya like em,

HayTay

"Steppe" by Peirs Anthony. Science Fiction/Fantasy based on the Mongol era.

I just realised nobody has mentioned Asimov and Arthur C. Clark. And for you Posix because tou seem to like heavy stuff; The Tontine and Captains and King. I forget the authors.

Geof says, "And for you Posix because tou seem to like heavy stuff..."

I thought it was vacpress that liked the "heavy stuff". Sounds kind of masochistic to me. Posix (he who started this thread), on the other hand, was looking for books similar to those written by Michael Crichton.

Darkness darkness I’m a specialist in
Darkness darkness
And it’s dark and it’s cold and it’s not
Like they told me it was gonna be
And the only light is from the fire of
The burning books

- Jefferson Starship
- Album: Winds of Change
- Song Title: Out of Control

I thought it was vacpress that liked the "heavy stuff". Sounds kind of masochistic to me. Posix (he who started this thread), on the other hand, was looking for books similar to those written by Michael Crichton.

Yes you are correct I relied too much on an inefficient memory.

Terry Pratchet, very funny stuff.

Vince

eh.. i am a book-addict.. its not just 'the heavy stuff', although it has been for a few years...

i have read and enjoyed alot of stuff like irvine welsh, chuck pahlaniuk, don dellilo, thomas pynchon, hunter thompson, and other huge best-sellers...

as far as sci-fi goes.. i wish i liked it. when i was a little kid i wished i liked it! i like kurt vonnegut's style of sci-fi.. and for any sci-fi fans... I Highly recomend the movies city of lost children and Pi. These are so good.. If only more sci-fi books were like that..

Here is the funny thing. I read 9/10 of the battlefield earth books(l ron hubbad).. such an absurd bad book.. i worked at a public library at the time... i thought it was funny..

vacpress; You have read vonnegut? Quote"i like kurt vonnegut's style of sci-fi" I admire your fortitude.

Is it "Player Piano" where they are looking for a real machinist because all the skills they had copied from some machinist's brain into an automatic machine had been scrambled or something. I tried to read something of Vonnegut's along these lines back in the earky seventies and thought it was ridiculous. Maybe I should try again.

Vonnegut is kinda like Harlan Ellison in my book; postwar angst psychobabble is all I can see in any of it.

Good thing there's lots of authors, considering all the different tastes in books ;)


Tiger

penthouse sort of fiction

the girls are real but the boobs are fiction

hmm. kurt vonnegut.. for some reason i thought he was universally admired... he certainly has a bit of angst.. sort of like the idealist hippie who waked up one day and realizes he works for a gas company or something...

however, Mr V's books are riddled with scifi innuendo. from giant dogs that can travel through gaps in the fabric of spacetime, to trmalfadorian kite-creatures called harmoniums that communicate with only the most beautifull phosphorescent colors in their caves...

he wrote a book about the rise of china, and he calls it 'the yellow death' his theory, in the book at least, is that the chinese are getting so small, they will soon come over the ocean in the form of a yellow cloud, and kill us by getting in our pours... like nanofibers...

however, this isnt a big deal because at least 2 people have a substance that, if dropped into the ocean or other large body of water, willl convert all the water of the world into plastic almost immediately!!!

I retract my "Maybe I should try again."

Plastic water? You are joking I hope? Or have you been reading too much Freeman Dyson?

"...candy is sweet but liquor is quicker...." said Ogden Nash, in "Rockets in your Pockets" (I think).

Now for the not so faint of heart and definitely NOT prudish in nature:

"Tropic of Cancer" and "Tropic of Capricorn" by Henry Milller (pretty sure). These have to DEFINITELY be fiction as NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY, could be/get that "lucky" in 14 lifetimes....

Erica Jong wrote one that was quite steamy that you'd swear was written by a man..... sorry, can't recall the title

If someone mentions "anything" by Camile Paglia, I'll scream.

The pshycho babble that comes from her mouth that passes for "expertise" in TV interviews Is nearly enough to make you pull an Elvis on the tv (shoot it with a 45).

And let us not forget the ever popular and equally (gots to be) fictional "reader's letters" in Penthouse.

I stopped by the used bookstore today and found a copy of "Steppe" by Piers Anthony (as recommended by Geof). Even if the book isn't any good the buffed and sun bronzed babe on the cover is HOT! ;)

Came across these two in my collection when looking for books to swap. Both are biological/medical thrillers in the same vein as those written by Crichton.

Lewis Perdue - Slatewiper (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765340666/ref=sr_11_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

John S. Marr, M.D. and John Baldwin - The Eleventh Plague (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061097632/sr=1-1/qid=1145769535/ref=sr_1_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

Hope you like 'em!

HayTay

if you like medical thrillers, i used to read robin cook when i was a young teenager. i really enjoyed stephen king, robin cook, some crichton, etc...

robin cook's medical fiction may be a bit more 'hard boiled'...

I don't like medical thrillers. I like science fiction.

All-righty, then. How about:

H. Beam Piper - The Fuzzy Papers: Little Fuzzy & Fuzzy Sapiens (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441261930/sr=8-1/qid=1146003871/ref=sr_1_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

Philip K. Dick - Numerous titles, short stories (approx. 121), anthologies, & compilations (in short, something for everyone that enjoys science fiction). Several of his short stories have been made into movies and include Total Recall and Paycheck!

Piers Anthony - Prostho Plus (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812531167/ref=sr_11_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8) and, again, Macroscope (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380002094/sr=1-2/qid=1146009111/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

Robert A. Heinlein - Starman Jones (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416505504/sr=1-7/qid=1146006347/ref=sr_1_7/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books), Friday (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345414004/sr=1-41/qid=1146006523/ref=sr_1_41/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books) , Job: A Comedy of Justice (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345316509/ref=dp_proddesc_1/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&v=glance)

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812550706/ref=cm_bg_d_4/104-1961635-4217506?v=glance&n=283155)

Frank Herbert - Dune (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441172717/ref=cm_bg_d_14/104-1961635-4217506?v=glance&n=283155) (I really enjoyed the first book, struggled through the second one, Dune Messiah, and never finished with whatever the 3rd, and subsequent, Dune novels there are)

Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1857988485/sr=1-1/qid=1146008817/ref=sr_oe_1_2/104-1961635-4217506?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books)

A lot of these I read in High School and thoroughly enjoyed. I may have to reread them to see if they are able to hold my interest 25+ years later.

HayTay

I don't think anyone has mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien. 'Lord Of The Rings' trilogy and 'The Hobbit'. Couple of the few books I have read twice.

Here is a website that has a interesting way of distributing books:
www.bookcrossing.com

Bill

Might help to mention what you have read so far?
Classics like Niven's ringworld series? Pournell?
Is fantasy OK? Do you want light reading or heavy stuff?
(Anybody got the patience to plod thru the painful details in 11+ "wheel of time" books?)

Dave

Frank Herbert - Dune (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0441172717/ref=cm_bg_d_14/104-1961635-4217506?v=glance&n=283155) (I really enjoyed the first book, struggled through the second one, Dune Messiah, and never finished with whatever the 3rd, and subsequent, Dune novels there are)


It is difficult wading all the way through the Dune series but if you enjoyed the first book you should try reading the prequel series; House Atriedes, House Harkonnen, etc written by the son of Frank Herbert and a co-author that also wrote some of the Star Wars novels. They used Frank Herberts notes and have succeeded in tieing things together very nicely. These books fall into what I call airplane books; books that make time pass on long international flights when it is impossible to sleep.

Might help to mention what you have read so far?
Classics like Niven's ringworld series? Pournell?
Is fantasy OK? Do you want light reading or heavy stuff?
(Anybody got the patience to plod thru the painful details in 11+ "wheel of time" books?)

Dave

Would a photograph of my bookshelves suffice? :) Much easier than typing a list with several hundred entries.

Off the Sci-fi genre, try Trustee from the toolroom by Neville Shute Norway, if you can find it. It is from the fifties. Or The Long Ships by Franz G Bengsston, a great adventure about the Vikings, also from the fifties. It was made into an incredibly bad and stupid movie at one time, but the book is great, it won a Pulitzer prize for fiction, i think.
For fun reads, try the Dortmunder (I'm a robber, not a graverobber!) series, Smoke, High Adventure, and others by Donald E Westlake. What's the worst that could happen was written by him, the book is good, the movie stunk. The books are usually good humored. He also wrote the Mel Gibson movie Payback as Richard Stark. His Stark books are usually darker and much more violent.
Hiasson is good, his villains are way over the top goofballs, dark humor.
Mysteries, try Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy series. Lovejoy is a guy you want to choke, the books are also darkly funny.
Enjoy!