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Good books for fun?

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J

jayhawk

Jedi Warrior
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I'm going to be on a couple rather long flights pretty soon and I don't sleep much on planes. I went to the neighbor hood Borders but have little clue about what's good. I read tons of stuff in my profession all the time but rarely take the time to read for pleasure. I'll read most anything when on vacation, but it seems that I tend to like mysteries, some sci fi (if clever) adventures, etc. Even beginning to like some history.

Any recs from what's available on the racks or stuff likely available in the public library?
 
If you like a good, dark mystery, go grab any of the John Sandford "Prey" series...

Rules of Prey
Shadow Prey
Eyes of Prey
Silent Prey
Winter Prey
Night Prey
Mind Prey
Sudden Prey
Secret Prey
Certain Prey
Easy Prey
Chosen Prey

....are some of them.

I can read one on a flight over the Atlantic or Pacific.
 
eee.. I dunno If you'll be able to find them at a retailer or not, but the Last Open Road series is a must read for LBC and vintage racing buffs.
Authored by BS Levy, a car mag columnist and vintage racer, he captures a lot of well researched historical facts, and I think our feelings twards our cars and puts them in a really good story.
Book 1 The Last Open Road
Book 2 Montazumas Ferrari
Book 3 The Fabulous Trashwagon
Book 4 (just out) Tolys Ghost
All are a continuing story, so I'd go in order.
I also just finished "The Guns Of Navarone"
If you like WWII stories, it's a good fast paced story, with lots of tense moments
 
Battlefield Earth

you will need an awful lot of plane rides to finish that one.


mark
 
Any of the Dave Robichaux series by James Lee Burke - great detective series set in S. Louisiana.

Also, if you want to read something outrageously hilarious, A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. A classic. Those who've read it know what I mean!

Mickey
 
[ QUOTE ]
... if you want to read something outrageously hilarious, A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. A classic. Those who've read it know what I mean!
Mickey

[/ QUOTE ]

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif YES!!! (I second this one.) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/iagree.gif
 
Great! I think I should have plenty to keep me occupied-- Thanks! (and keep em' coming if availability is any problem)
 
By the way,sort of to return the favor,I've read some of James Patterson's books as hand-me-downs from a friend. Some of his seemed pretty good. He seems to be on the best seller list quite often.
 
Combine detective fiction, sci-fi, comedy, and classic literature, and you get the "Thursday Next" series from Jasper Fforde. They are without a doubt, the most creative, imaginative books I've read. They are The Eyre Affair, Lost In A Good Book, The Well Of Lost Plots, and Something Rotten. If you've ever read any of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide books, you'll like these. The main character, Thursday Next, is a government agent in Swindon in 1984, as a LiteraTec, specializing in things like fake Shakespeare manuscripts and militant Baconians. Other than that, it's almost impossible to explain!

Fforde has started a new series, the "Nursery Crime" series, in which a Reading police detective, Jack Spratt, and his partner, Mary Mary, investigate crimes committed against, by or involving nursery rhyme characters. Again, simply brilliant, creative books. The two titles in the series are The Big Over Easy (about the mysterious death of Humpty Dumpty-was he drunk when he fell off the wall, or was he shot?), and The Fourth Bear , a gripping story of murder, planet destroying weaponry, the Battle of the Somme, and Ursine Porridge Quotas.

Oh heck, just go to www.jasperfforde.com
 
I usually take several paperback books with me when I'm on the road for the Army - when I finish one, I give it to a soldier...they can always use them as there aren't enough for all of them in distant places.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I usually take several paperback books with me when I'm on the road for the Army - when I finish one, I give it to a soldier...they can always use them as there aren't enough for all of them in distant places.

[/ QUOTE ]
Just how DO they use them? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif In distant places? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devilgrin.gif


I'll second the Hitchhikers Guide series.. It's like living in a "far side" cartoon. very entertaning.
 
hehehehehehe...trust me, I've used pages from them as toilet paper!

Seriously, though, books get passed around from one soldier to another & can be pretty dogeared by the time the last guy gets to read them...I've never had a soldier say "no" to a free book! & I've gone in to the simulation center late at night to find the gate guards reading the books I left for them!
 
Thirding the Hitchhikers Guide series, and the Dune series, and Heavy Metal magazines, and even the stephen king Dark Tower series.
 
The last book I read was this one. It's the story about the wreck Of the "Central America" and the recovery of it's gold etc. I couldn't put this book down.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thirsty.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
... but it seems that I tend to like mysteries....

[/ QUOTE ]

Is Henning Mankell (Swedish, with stories set there) Available on that side of the Atlantic?
Karen Fossum (Norway)?
Sujata Massey (Japanese with a 1/2 American 1/2 Japanese Female)?
Olen SteinHauer (Eastern Europe)?
Barbara Nadel (Turkey)?
Stuart Kaminski (he's American, but stories set in Russia)

All interesting, with stories set outside the USA, if you'd like a change of scenery....

And more traditional British Crime fiction:

Ruth Rendell/ Barbara Vine
P.D. James
Ian Rankin (Rebus)
Dick Francis (Horse Racing related murder & mayhem)
Reginald Hill (Dalzel & Pascoe)


I kind of wish I flew more.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
I wish the good authors wrote more. But then after a point they are no longer hungry.
 
Read one called Inca Kola while I was backpacking thru south america, kind of a fellow travellers experiences while there, was a good read
 
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