Barr, Nevada: The Anna Pigeon books, all starring a National Park Ranger who works all over the country. The first is Track of the Cat.
Burke, James Lee: The Dave Robicheaux books, all of which are set in the area surrounding New Orleans. Burke's descriptions will fill your senses, and make you crave a Dr. Pepper with crushed ice, cherries, orange slices, and mint leaves--really. Start with Neon Rain.
Hillerman, Tony: Wonderful mysteries set in Navajo country. The first with Joe Leaphorn is The Blessing Way; Hillerman's other main character, Jim Chee, is introduced in the fourth book of the series, People of Darkness. There is a nicely annotated list at Dancing Badger.com.
Jance, J.A.: Books featuring Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, starting with Desert Heat. We stayed in Bisbee, AZ, where the fictional sheriff has her office.
McGarrity, Michael: The Kevin Kerney books, starting with Tularosa. All take place in various settings around New Mexico.
Stabenow, Dana: This series is set in Alaska in an unnamed national park, and stars memorable heroine Kate Shugak, Aleut detective and former FBI agent. The first in the series is (I believe) A Cold Day for Murder. The series gets better as it goes along and as Stabenow matures as a writer.
Ready? Send me your lists of the books you like to read. Just put them into the comments section of the blog so we can all share. Thanks for collaborating!
7 comments:
I'm possibly missing my favorites, but as my entire collection is currently sitting in multiple boxes, I can't double-check this list. I'll just toss off a list of books that I could read again and again. These are the books that sometimes I'll grab on the way out of the house, just to catch a snippet on the subway:
STILL LIFE AND WOODPECKER - Tom Robbins
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING - Milan Kundera
THE PEARL - John Steinbeck
LOLITA - Vladimir Nabokov
1984 - George Orwell
Any of the LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy (or THE HOBBIT) - J.R.R. Tolkien
HARRY POTTER and whatever (cliched? yes) - JK Rowling
THE STAND - Stephen King
THE WATCHMEN - Alan Moore (graphic novel)
INFINITE JEST - David Foster Wallace (infinite entertainment that most people have never even finished)
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS - Ernest Hemmingway
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME - Mark Haddon
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED - Roald Dahl
I, ROBOT - Isaac Asimov
ABOUT A BOY - Nick Hornby
HITCHHIKER's GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - Douglas Adams
NAKED - David Sedaris
Ok, I need to stop or I will just keep on going...
From an email asking my friends to wigh in, these books were recommended:
The Road - McCarthy
No Country for Old Men - Mccarthy
The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Chabon
Phillip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS series.
I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
ULYSSES - James Joyce
IT - STephen King
Since almost everyone who knows me knows that I'll "share" (read: "blather on incessantly about until everyone is sick of hearing about it") my favorite whatever-it-is-I-happen-to-be-obssessing-about at the drop of a hat, I'll try to include stuff that maybe I haven't already mentioned.
First - essential? It might be easier to go with essential authors than books, because let's say they don't have that book. You still gotta spend the money, right? So, in no order:
Jonathan Carroll - a more literate horror writer, with a streak of the surrealist. Think Stephen King meets Borges. Lots of very deep stuff, here, but always funny, fascinating, and scary as hell. Titles: From the Teeth of Angels, Sleeping in Flame, Outside the Dog Museum, White Apples, Kissing the Beehive and many, many others. He's got an awesome blog at http://www.jonathancarroll.com.
Mark Helprin - another fantasist, but much more down to earth, for that. Tends to write sprawling, picaresque historical books with a central hero character who overcomes fantastic (and often ridiculous) situations. My favorite book of his is one called Winter's Tale, which is, above all, a love story to a turn of the century New York that never really was - like Gangs of New York, but with flying horses (really!). Romantic as hell. Also by him: Memoir From Antproof Case, and Solider of the Great War (also amazing and heartbreaking).
Dale Pendell - These I sort of have gone on about a bit, but he's totally worth it. He wrote the Pharmaka/Poeia series which is, essentially, one enormous epic poem to plant based drugs. It's a cross between a book on herbs, a magic grimoire, and a study in cultural anthropology. There are no books like it that I've ever read, and I think anyone with even a marginal interest in any of the above should own them - especially the first.
Also, in no order:
Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon (dense! written in 18th century dialect! talking dogs and labyrinthine conspiracies!)
Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman (made me smile almost non-stop for a week)
the Promethea series - Alan Moore
Canopus in Argos - Doris Lessing (Sci-Fi, but also quite the philosophical text. made me weep more than once from sheer sorrow at the human condition, plus she just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, so you got that going for you)
VALIS - Philip K. Dick (severe depression alert, but totally worth it)
Anything by Cormac McCarthy, though if you haven't read him, All the Pretty Horses is a good place to start
Yeah, that oughta keep you busy.
I'm so pleased to have comments here on the blog from the New York literati!
Click on seraphimcharm's name above to find his blogs. I've just added his wonderful Four Every Day (http://foureveryday.blogspot.com/)to my list of favorites.
I hope we'll be hearing from the New Englanders and the West Coasters and The People in the Middle, too.
It’s much easier for me to list the authors I like to read than to pick specific titles.
My favorites (no particular order):
Tony Hillerman
Michael McGarrity
Isabel Allende
Toni Morrison
Julia Alvarez
John Grisham
Stuart Woods
John Lescroart
Leon Uris
Scott Turow
Fannie Flagg
Several specific novels that are my favorites are:
Paula by Isabel Allende
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Exodus by Leon Uris
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Stand by Stephen King
She’s Come Undone by Wally Amos
Best Friends by Martha Moody
O! Pioneers by Willa Cather
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
And ... finally ... A nod to this book because it is where I got my screen name:
Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
Oh boy!
I keep thinking of more things I forgot!
Authors:
Janet Evanovich (I howl with laughter at her books; better than medicine!)
Sue Grafton
Alice Walker
Novels:
The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver
Towanda, I have literally made myself sick laughing at the Evanovich books, especially over Grandma Mazur and the funeral home scenes! My husband can actually tell from the next room when I'm reading Evanovich.
~clairz
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