Another Recommendation?

[papayahed]

I'm looking for an easy read, something in the thriller/swashbuckling/maybe historical genre/ a little fantasy but not a "fantasy" book. Anything will do as long as there isn't any symbolism and I don't have to think to much. And I've already read the Dr. Suess collection, so none of those. And no Harlequin (sp?) romances.

Thanks.

[Monica]

dan brown :D

[Taliesin]

..little fantasy but not a "fantasy" book..
Duh?
Don't understand it.

But if you are speaking of what we are thinking you are speaking then We suggest De Lint and his "Someplace to be Flying".

[Stanislaw]

Chrisalids - some guy
Conan the barbarian or Conan the destroyer - assorted
Eaters of the dead - Crichton
Star Trek novels - assorted
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
Cosmic Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
Futurological Congress - Stanislaw Lem
Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem
Shogun - that guy
Taliwar - not by that guy.

[papayahed]

Duh?
Don't understand it.




It can have fantasy aspects, but not as the main theme. ie a book that has a warlock as a side kick, but not a book based on a warlock.

[subterranean]

Those are so you :D



Chrisalids - some guy
Conan the barbarian or Conan the destroyer - assorted
Eaters of the dead - Crichton
Star Trek novels - assorted
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - Adams
Cosmic Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
Futurological Congress - Stanislaw Lem
Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem
Shogun - that guy
Taliwar - not by that guy.

[Jack_Aubrey]

OK, he asked for easy to read, and someone recommended Shogun. Shogun is about 1,000,000 pages long and therefore not easy to read. My recommendation in answer to the "swashbuckling" idea is The Three Musketeers By: Alexander Dumas.

[papayahed]

*ehm, "She" asked for an easy read.....

Thanks for the suggestions. Anybody ever read Louis L'Amour? Jimmy Buffett mentions him in a few songs.

[baddad]

*ehm, "She" asked for an easy read.....

Thanks for the suggestions. Anybody ever read Louis L'Amour? Jimmy Buffett mentions him in a few songs.


Yeah, I've read Louie.......he's written slews of books in the cowboy genre....quite popular as far as american writers go........and 3 months ago I read a detective novel that he had written years ago before he found his niche.

[papayahed]

Reading the Seventh Son and seems interesting so far...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812533054/qid=1104677581/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-6264144-3139803?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I'm on to you Scher, Are you trying to get me into the Febuary Book Club?????? :nod:

[Scheherazade]

I'm on to you Scher, Are you trying to get me into the Febuary Book Club?????? :nod:
'5th Amendment!' is all I can say!!! :brow:

We are reading 'The Seventh Son' now as I had already got it from the library and seems like 'Flies' is leading the poll so far. And it is interesting to read;a flowing story line without too much fantasy, making you want to read another page before you put it down.

'Shogun' is easy to read despite being a long book... Like 'Gone With the Wind', you can hardly put it down till you finish it.

[amuse]

length of work aside, i found Shogun to be magnificent, and therefore easy. ;)

[EAP]

'The Chrysalids' is by John Wyndham, and nothing by him is easy to read.

If you are fine with Science-fiction I'll recomend '2001: A Space Odyssey' by Arthur C. Clarke or 'Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein.

Or how about Michael Ende's 'The Neverending Story' though it does have traditional heavy fantastic elements. There are so many books one can recommend; It's just very difficult to pick one based on your criteria.
In the legal thriller category you have John Grisham. Jeffery Archer wrote some excellent thriller novels, 'Kane and Abel', 'The Fourth Estate' etc. Then there are people like Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton who write fast-pased pulp, good while it lasts. Moving on towards noir/action/thriller you have authors like Raymond Chandler, Dean Knootz, Peter Acroyd - Richard Matheson writes good vampire fiction with elements of sci-fi mixed in.

Going farther back there is Zane Grey and there is Rafael Sabatini; actually I think you might like Sabatini. He writes historial adventures/romances better then most people out there. Sharon Key Penman is an author in the same vein, only her setting of expertise is middle-age England.

There is Guy Gavriel Kay who writes historical fantasy set in places like Spain, Rome, Italy etc and there are masters of the gothic and ribald like Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and P.G. Wodehose [probably the best satirist to come out of england in the 20th century]

Urban Fantasy [basically our world with the 'slight' alteration that magic exists] has masters like De Lint, China Mieville, Robert Holdstock - though it often contains a lot of symbolicism admittedly without being thick and arcane - still not something to read in place of an afternoon nap or a train commute.

There are mystery writers like Christopher Priest, Martin Amis and even the compartively 'literary' Mark Haddon.

But If I were asked to recommend a single book based on the criteria you offer, my recommendation would be '[B]The Dark Tower[/I]' saga by Stephen King. It has everything, from a pseudo science-fictional world to robots to swashbuckling cowboy characters to beautiful heriones to romances of the shakespearen ilk to apocalpsies, quests, humor, tragedy, mystery, adventure etc. The first book is pretty short, doesn't make you think much and is easily avalable from libraries and old-book stores at a very cheap price; and King's prose is as flowing as they come. [without the annoyning ramblings that mar his later books like Needful things]

[Rechka]

Once again my recommendation is from hispanic literature...Horacio Quiroga's The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories.

Link in Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0299198340/qid=1107146019/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/104-1271323-4714304

[Snukes]

I must say, some of y'all have an interesting idea of "easy read."

Of the choices already mentioned, I would second Seventh Son, Hitchhiker's Guide, and the Dark Tower series (which are also advantageous because if you like them, you've got more books to read!)

Louis L'Amour is kind of the Daniel Steele of the Western Novel. ;) Although he's also the king of the western, so is worth trying on for size.

I also rather liked Piers Anthony's "Phase" series - more serious than his Xanth novels, with some interesting scenarios. (I think the first one is Blue Adept.) A nice mixture of sci-fi and light fantasy.

I'm also quite fond of Gregary McGuire - Wicked and True Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - which are retellings of the Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, respectively.

I could keep going. I'd better stop. Happy hunting! :D

[papayahed]

Thanks for the recommendations. i've already started the Dark tower series, unfortunatly I can't remember where I left off (it was quite a while ago) and I remember liking hitchhikers...

Tomorrow I'm going to the bookstore armed with a few suggestions and I'll see what strikes me.

[GreenDog]

The Headless Horseman- by Thomas Mayne Reid.
It is an adventure, there is also a mystery, and VERY easy raeding.
Something more serious by the same author- The Quadroon (probably his best novel)

[papayahed]

So I went to the library with a list of authors that your guys have recommended (and thank you by the way) most of which they didn't have or was already checked out. I ended up with State of Fear by Micheal Crichton.