Use this too, it's very valuable...

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk

I love heist movies.

All types of fiction listed here:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/


Only mysteries here (lists genre, location)

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/index.html


Check your local library website. A good many of us go to the library. Also, go to the book section of Amazon for reviews, etc...

Ben Marcus is great, particularly Notable American Women

A family with a bunch of daughters decides to move to the Congo to become missionaries in the 60s.

It's a gripping read.

You already know Cormac McCarthy, and one assumes you see the name Kim Stanley Robinson around here too. A few others: Leslie Marmon Silko, Roberto Bolano, Neal Stephenson, Iain M. Banks.

by Erin Morgenstern. I read it a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Night-Circus-Erin-Morgenstern/dp/0385534639

Here are a few suggestions:

Time After Time by Jack Finney. If you like it read the sequel, From Time to Time.

Inside Daisy Clover by Gavin Lambert

Henry and Clara by Thomas Mallon. It's about the couple who went to the theater with President and Mrs. Lincoln that night in April, 1865. Henry and Clara grew up as step-brother and -sister when her widowed father married his widowed mother. The story of their life, how they wound up present when Lincoln was assassinated, and what happened to them after. I had never heard of them, even though I can clearly call to mind the engraving of the assassination, with a man reaching out toward Lincoln as he's being shot. I can tell you that I read the last twenty pages absolutely open-mouthed in astonishment. Mallon has written a number of other good books.

Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper. An attorney from Toronto heads to northern Ontario to defend a school teacher who is on trial for the murder of two students who simply disappeared. Lyrical language. I found myself reading passages out loud to anyone who would hold still.

Replay by Ken Grimwood. In 1988 a man dies of a heart attack, and finds himself back in 1963 as an 18 year old college student. He knows everything that's going to happen for the next twenty-five years. He does everything possible to prevent a heart attack the second time around, but dies again anyway, and finds himself once again an 18 year old. One of my all time favorite novels, and there's been rumors of a possible film for years.

Spencer Quinn has written four books so far about a private detective named Bernie Little and his dog, Chet. The dog narrates. Love them.

Stewart O'Nan also writes wonderful books and doesn't seem to be very well known. He writes about truly ordinary people. The Good Wife is about a woman who is six months pregnant with her first child when her husband who unknown to her has been committing robberies for some time now, has one go horribly wrong and a woman is killed. He's sentenced to twenty-five years to life. She spends the next twenty-five years plus raising their son, managing alone, visiting her husband every chance she can, including when he's transferred to a prison up near the Canadian border of New York State -- she lives not far from Ithaca.

Hope some of this helps. I love finding a writer I like and then reading everything that person has written. There's a wonderful joy and satisfaction in doing that.

Last edited Tue Jun 26, 2012, 09:05 PM - Edit history (1)

Great series. http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/J_Authors/Johnson_Craig.htmldern-day series, lots of laughs, scary parts too...

If you click one of the links at SYKM on these books, it takes you to Amazon for a review of that book.

In the case of this series, it's best to start with the first one where you meet the memorable and likable characters that show up in the rest of the stories...

Colson Whitehead "Apex Hides the Hurt" or "John Henry Days"
Michael Chabon "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" or "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay"
Paul Murray "Skippy Dies"
Jonathan Safran Foer "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"
Anything by Sherman Alexie
Joshua Ferris "Then We Came to the End: A Novel" and "The Unnamed"
Brock Clarke "An Arsonist’s Guide to the Writer’s Homes of New England" and "Exley"
John Irving "The World According to Garp" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany"

Those three books are in my Top 10 faves.

Also love all Pat Conroy (I AM from the South...), with the Prince of Tides being the best, IMO.

Poisonwood Bible was recommended earlier. I reread that every 3 or 4 years. Just love that book.

Wally Lamb - She's Come Undone or I Know This Much is True.

oh, there are just so, so many wonderful fiction books to read.

A novel set in a not-too-distant future, after Peak Oil, when there's no more gasoline, no electricity(for the most part) and people have to make do the way they did before the Industrial Revolution. Kunstler is kinda nostalgic for this scenario to happen so it's not depicted in a gloomy way, just matter-of-factly. I'm really liking it. There's also a sequel, The Witch of Hebron.

or any of Louise Penny's books.

read anything and everything by Donald Westlake. Especially his Dortmunder books, which always involve a heist of some kind.

I would strongly recommend some Dickens (you could start with 'A Christmas Carol' at this time of year). His commentary on social inequality is unsurpassed - even in this Christmas book.

I've also just read 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' which is excellent.