whats your favorite books from these authors or similar kinds of books
im determined to read at least one or two books over the summer so i need some recommendations

5/21/2006 10:31:29 PM

You should read some good books instead.

5/21/2006 10:33:35 PM

haha, i knew that was comming,
any suggestions are welcome

5/21/2006 10:37:30 PM

Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I don't really have a reason for these two. They just popped in my head and they aren't as widely read, I guess.

5/21/2006 10:40:45 PM

read some good books by non-shitty writers.

5/21/2006 10:44:22 PM

5/21/2006 10:51:23 PM

timeline by crichton is one of the best books i've ever read.

5/21/2006 10:56:31 PM

5/21/2006 11:01:45 PM

This reminds me of a joke I made in chit chat today.

5/21/2006 11:02:24 PM

Andromeda Strain by Crichton is good, as well as the Jurassic park series....

I want to read some more of his as well.

5/21/2006 11:21:22 PM

Crichton is my guilty pleasure... its mental masturbation for sure but I just love the technical detail.

5/22/2006 1:11:55 AM

I've read a whole bunch of Clancy in my life, and I really enjoy it, but I would definitely place it in this category. I haven't kept up, though, since The Bear and the Dragon.

Try Without Remorse if you don't necessarily care for the whole geopolitical thing.

And if you haven't read Jurrasic Park and the Lost World, do that.

5/22/2006 1:16:22 AM

Crichton is definitely one of my favorite authors. I have liked all of his books including the most recent Prey and State of Fear.

Another author in the same line as those in the topic is Robert Ludlum who you might be interested in checking out.

5/22/2006 1:17:57 AM

i would really like to read prey.

and i agree that timeline and the jurassic park books are great.

5/22/2006 2:20:56 AM

fav. movie based on Grisham book = The Firm

5/22/2006 2:22:38 AM

[Edited on May 22, 2006 at 2:45 AM. Reason : better pic]

5/22/2006 2:44:34 AM

are you looking for a good read or good fiction?

Fiction: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Non-fiction: A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

5/22/2006 3:23:52 AM

Was going to say there's like 5/6 threads in Lounge...but I guess there was a purge.

I would say any Clancey over any of the two you named, one thing for sure, don't read "The Summons".

Some good "Contemporary Fiction" try: Michael Chabon (esp. Kavalier and Clay, Final Solution, Wonder Boys), Mitch Cullin.

Some Seconds:
Catch-22 is great
Vonnegut
but I think Cat's Cradle is actually my fav

5/22/2006 4:02:50 AM

Grisham's first novel, "A Time to Kill," is really good. Actually, I like all of Grisham's stuff. I recently started reading some of James Patterson's stuff. Not bad at all.

5/22/2006 5:13:44 AM

Yea, Catch-22 and Vonnegut are the bomb.

5/22/2006 7:55:40 AM

Timeline is def one of my fav crichton books. I also really enjoyed Airframe as well as Prey.

State of Fear was quite good too, if you can get past the preachy-ness of it. Its easy if you agree with his views, but I could see it being a difficult read if you didnt.

5/22/2006 9:10:35 AM

My favorite Grisham book is the one about the young southern lawyer on his first big case.

5/22/2006 10:04:59 AM

this dude's asking for "holy shit, it's a conspiracy!" type books and y'all are recommending vonnegut?

i haven't read any grisham, but i like crichton... i think airframe's my favorite. amazon seems to think you should try some clancy and koontz as well.

5/22/2006 10:24:00 AM

^^hahaha

5/22/2006 10:29:40 AM

Quote :

"Michael Chabon (esp. Kavalier and Clay"

EXCELLENT READ...read it last summer.

5/22/2006 10:31:24 AM

Koontz is good. Some of his books start off really slow, though.

Patterson is good for an easy read. I've found that a lot of his books are really easy to read through and not that technical/specific.

5/22/2006 10:32:01 AM

My wife came back from a trip with a couple Koontz books. She said "have you ever heard of him" and I was like, "uhhh, yeah. He's only one of the best selling novelists in the past 10 years". But then the more I thought about it, I couldn't name a single Koontz book, and I didn't recognize any of the ones listed on the book jacket.

Anyway, she got "The Taking" and "Life Expectancy". I read The Taking as my first Koontz book, and holy shit - it sucked hard. It started out OK, but it just fell into an endless series of terrible horror movie cliches, stupid dialouge, unlikeable characters, unbelieveable story lines - then there was a bit ofa twist ending that had me almost throwing the book out the window it was such a cop-out.
So that turned me off Koontz pretty quickly, but eventually I did pick up Life Expectancy. It was kind of slow at first, but it was still a bit more interesting and the characters were at least likeable. After reading that, I might go back to read more Koontz, but i'm in no rush.

i also got my first Grissiam books a few weeks ago. The Rainmaker was good (the movie with Matt Damon and Danny Devito) - well paced, pretty good story, although I thought it brought in too many sub-plotlines and never finished them off.
Then I've started reading The Last Juror twice, and still haven't made it past page 60. booooooooring, and already extremely predictable (not that there was ever any suspense in The Rainmaker, but it was still fun to go along with the ride).

5/22/2006 11:02:05 AM

I can count the number of books ive ever read with two maybe three hands

Ive read the Timeline by accident and it was really good, ive read the summons, the pelican brief, contact, on Koontz book about a doctor who erases people's memory, and a few others

right now i have a book beside my bed that i just cant pass chapter two, its called "the summons"

Quote :

"one thing for sure, don't read "The Summons"."

gotcha

i just picked up Lost World, i wanted Jurassic park or Airframe but they were checked out so i'll start with this,
thanks for the suggestions and keep em comming

5/22/2006 12:28:44 PM

dont read lost world if you havent read jurassic park

5/22/2006 12:32:35 PM

i might try to pick up jurrasic park from somewhere

5/22/2006 12:34:54 PM

Crichton is one of my favorite authors. I def liked Andromeda strain and the Jurassic park series, loved timeline. I reccomend another book by him called "The Great Train Robbery" I think it said it was non-fiction, but to be honest I can't remember. Has a great plot and i couldn't put it down once I picked it up.

5/22/2006 1:39:21 PM

Quote :

" right now i have a book beside my bed that i just cant pass chapter two"

I read it while stuck at an airport, otherwise I don't think I would have gotten even that far. About as much happens throughout the rest of the book as up to there.

5/22/2006 1:48:13 PM

any peter benchley fans? i enjoyed jaws, creature, and beast. ha but of course i read them when i was a kid, so i probably just was intrigued by the gore.

besides timeline, i haven't read any fiction in years really.

5/23/2006 12:24:19 AM

Quote :

"I can count the number of books ive ever read with two maybe three hands"

You make me sad.

All Grisham books are the same. Really.

Go with something else in this thread- Catch-22 is always good. Or some Pynchon. Jesus, just read something.

5/23/2006 12:50:50 AM

I'll second Chabon.

I'll add Grass, Rushdie, and Eggers for good measure, although I expect to receive some hate re: Eggers.

5/23/2006 2:15:44 AM

Quote :

"this dude's asking for "holy shit, it's a conspiracy!" type books and y'all are recommending vonnegut?"

i actually didn't pay a whole lot of attn. he just said he wanted a good summer read. i posted a good book. oh yeah and he "all suggestions are welcome"

5/23/2006 4:23:05 AM

^^Feel bad doing it since you seconded Chabon but, I'll give you a little dislike (won't say hate) for Eggers. I couldn't get through AHWOSG although I did enjoy what I read, just not enough to get all the way through it (hopefully I will eventually). I do enjoy McSweeny's though and actually their collections make for some good/easy/short reading.

5/23/2006 5:43:03 AM

I read books by Grisham, Crichton, purely for entertainment value. Like if I know I'm going on a flight, road trip, beach, etc...I'll just grab one of these books. They are usually pretty entertaining and can be read pretty quickly.

That being said....just about any Grisham book will do. Some are better than others, like the ones that have been made into movies are great: Time to Kill, The Firm, The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury. I found the rest of his books pretty good too. I also REALLY like Mario Puzo. He is the author of the Godfather...which is probably my favorit book ever. I've ready every single one of his books. Some of them are a little weak, but The Sicilian and the The Family are awesome. So I'd recommend those too. Dean Koontz writes pretty entertaining, easy-to-read books.

5/23/2006 7:19:37 AM

i can't believe nobody has said dan brown yet hahah

seriously though no computer geekengineer is complete
without having read anything from stevenson or gaiman.
Check out cryptonomincon for sure

[Edited on May 23, 2006 at 7:30 AM. Reason : oh yrashaher]

5/23/2006 7:29:12 AM

Quote :

"I do enjoy McSweeny's though and actually their collections make for some good/easy/short reading."

Yeah, despite the fact that I really liked AHWOSG, You Shall Know Our Velocity, and How We Are Hungry, my undying love of The Believer and McSweeney's Quarterly Concern trumps it all.

5/23/2006 12:18:54 PM

Elmore Leonard writes entertaining books. The ones that were made into movies are good and he has many others.

5/23/2006 2:07:02 PM

Im reading jurassic park now, i just dont know if i'll enjoy it as much since ive already seen the movie, but so far so good

5/23/2006 2:11:39 PM

Anything by Crichton is great. To me, Sphere was by far his best. It's not as widely read, and the film adaptation kinda sucked, but it has some very interesting concepts that you really have to read to fully appreciate. Anyway, definitley worth checking out.

5/23/2006 6:05:11 PM

sphere is definitely my favorite, followed by airframe and congo.

5/23/2006 6:23:07 PM

im readin the broker by grisham now, and i think its pretty good, but i like pretty much all of his stuff

5/23/2006 6:26:28 PM

For the nice light beach read books, I like Jonathon Kellerman, Stuart Woods, and Robin Cook among a bunch of others. The first two write whodonit cop books, and Robin Cook is more like crichton, with science and diseases involved. I just got done with Palindrome by Stuart Woods, and that was great.

5/23/2006 6:39:43 PM

Slaughter House 5 is OVERRATED

5/27/2006 2:12:31 PM

Quote :

"Check out cryptonomincon for sure"

ohmyGOD, snoozefest.

5/27/2006 2:15:00 PM

airframe by crichton

the client or the runaway jury by grisham

[Edited on May 27, 2006 at 2:44 PM. Reason : read airframe in 3 days]

5/27/2006 2:43:41 PM

i like some good Dick every now and then

5/27/2006 2:57:19 PM