Need new Author similar vein to John Buchan?
I don't mind John Buchan's books. I also love Joseph Conrad. I'm looking for a new author to read though.
Turn of the century era.
Spy or adventure type stuff. Sea faring good too!
Not too serious and heavy, but not too light either.
Any suggestions?
I've read some Edgar Rice Burroughs and some Jules Vern, but am looking for something else.
Robert Louis Stephenson is good too.
I just don't want anything too emotionally heavy and depressing. Too much of that in real life right now. I want to escape.
Thanks in advance.
First of all, learn how to spell Stevenson ....
There are many authors in the John Buchan genre. One is E. Philips Openheim. Try The Great Impersonation by Openheim. For a little later but pre WWII, try Eric Ambler. A great book is A Coffin for Demetrious. It was also made into a fine movie with Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Zachary Scott.
As far as Edgar Rice Burroughs goes, I prefer the Tarzan series. Burroughs vocabulary is extensive so you'll learn a lot of new words. There are 23 titles in the Tarzan series so start with the first one, Tarzan of the Apes, and go from there. After the first one, you can read them in any order.
A few great adventure stories include King Slomon's Mines by H. Ryder Haggard, Scaramouche and Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini, and The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope.
On a more modern note ....
you should try a few of the John Le Carre novels of the cold war. The Spy who came in from the Cold and The Karla trilogy are spy literature at its acme. Another good one is The Perfect Spy. Not to denigrate Buchan, but Le Carre is a much better writer.
An interesting book is V. by Thomas Pynchon. The book carries on two tales at once: the story of V., a turn-of-the-century spy, who keeps losing a portion of her anatomy with every adventure and the story of hunting full-grown albino alligators in the sewers of NYC. This stems from the urban legend of miniature alligators purchased at fairs and circuses by indulgent parents, then flushed own the toilet to get rid of the little reptiles.
Brian - I have to partially disafree with you on this ....
I have read all the Le Carre books and all the short stories of Ashendon. Even watched the Ashendon movie with Peter Lorre playing the curly-haired Mexican. While overall, in short stories and novels, Maugham is a better writer than Le Carre, the Ashendon stories do not approach Le Carre's best in Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; and the Perfect Spy. The last, the story of Magnus Pym, spy extroidinaire, is spy telling at its zenith. If interested in spy literature, one should read Maugham and Le Carre, with some Eric Ambler thrown in with John Buchan. Some of Le Carre's novels, such as The Night Manager, are not his best, but I don't think you can compare the Ashendon stories to the non-linear, convulted spy novels of Le Carre since in the first instance, you can't compare short stories to a complete novel. I have read extensively of the spy genre, from E. Philips Openeheim to John Lecarre, and when Le Carre is at his best (see titles above), there is no one better.
