I'm reading Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America." It started slow, but has gotten much better. I'm also a big Harry Potter fan, and have just reread most of that series. Finally, I have a trilogy by Brock and Bodie Thoene (a fictional account of the first century Christian church) on my desk to get to as well.
if you've got the least little bit of parrohead in you, pick up a salty piece of land by jimmy buffett. or if you're in the need of a winter time pick me up!
timeline by michael crichton is also a stellar book if you're into sci-fi.
I just read a different one, "Skeletons on the Zaharaa". It's a true story about a group of sailors who shipwrecked and were taken into slavery. Really different stuff.
I also just read, "They Marched Into Sunlight" about the Vietnam war. It had a lot of discussion on the political scene of the time, as well as the point of view of several soldiers fighting in the war.
Both very different books.
Fiction:
She's Come Undone - by Wally Lamb
I Know This Much Is True - Wally Lamb
The Devil Wears Prada - (forgot author's name)
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Non-Fiction:
Middle East Illusions - Chomsky
Appetites - Caroline Knapp
The Day the Voices Stopped - Ken Steele
The Soul of a Butterfly - Muhammad Ali
It's Not About the Bike - Lance Armstrong
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Dry - Augusten Burroughs
Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs
Hope this helps!
Kari
The Kite Runner is a pretty good book that I just finished. It is a novel that gives a very interesting picture of life in Afghanistan from the early 70's on.
For laughs:
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - (the late) Hunter Thompson
Riotous Assembly - Tom Sharpe
Indecent Exposure - Tom Sharpe (read after Riotous Assembly)
Confederacy Of Dunces - John O'Toole
For chills:
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
'Salem's Lot - Stephen King
Damnation Game - Clive Barker
Summer of Night - Dan Simmons
For Fear of the Night - Charles Grant
Misc:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
... and about 10,000 others...
-LBJ
Ursula K LeGuin, any of her books. Specifically "Lathe of Heaven" and "A Wizard of Earthsea". (If you saw the SciFi mini-series, flush that nonsense out of your brain, it was almost nothing like the book.)
Also "Swimming Made Easy" by Laughlin (the four strokes book).
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series is great. If you've seen the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe it was based on parts of two of these novels. There are around 20 in the series.
