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BOOKS and AUTHORS I LOVE


ROOTS by Alex Haley

ROOTS is about five or six generations of the same family, from Kunta Kinte, who is kidnapped from Africa and brought to America as a slave, down through his children and their children until we reach the author himself. While it's an interesting account of slavery and their conditions, what moved me far more were the concepts of family history: knowing where you come from and how your family became what it is. Knowing about your roots, I guess you could say!

I haven't read anything else by Alex Haley, and don't know what else he's written.


MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY

The majority of Marion Zimmer Bradley's works are fantasy, set (I assume) on another planet or in another universe, and including the Darkover series. I know nothing about these - I've never read them.

The works that I'm a huge fan of are her historical/mythical novels, where she takes a legend and turns it into a rich novel with in-depth characters. Her protagonists are women, and the focus throughout each novel is particularly (but not exclusively) on the points of view of the women in the story.

THE FIREBRAND tells the story of the Fall of Troy from the point of view of Kassandra, sister of Paris, a priestess who in the myth was cursed with the power of seeing the future but having no one believe her visions. This is my favourite of Bradley's novels because I'm interested in Greek and Roman mythology and know more about them than about Arthurian legend.

Her take on the legend of King Arthur is called THE MISTS OF AVALON (now a mini-series if you're not a fan of fat novels!), and the main character in the story is Arthur's sister, Morgaine (or Morgan le Fay), a "wicked witch" type character in the original myth, but heroine of Bradley's story.

The 'Avalon' series also has other novels set in many different centuries, but all relating to the same religious order of women in Britain. These novels are THE FORESTS OF AVALON (also called THE FOREST HOUSE), LADY OF AVALON, and PRIESTESS OF AVALON.

What I find interesting about these novels is how they give possible explanations for how myths developed, and make you question both myth and history (and wonder how closely the two are related). They look beyond the 'good' and 'bad' labels that myth tend to assign the players, and suggest reasons - even justifications - for some of their actions. They also raise awareness about the roles of women and the issues they faced in the past.


NEAL STEPHENSON

Neal Stephenson writes dense, dense science fiction. The "density" is mostly in the language itself - each paragraph is packed full of ideas and images. This might be too dense for people who aren't strong readers or aren't comfortable with technological lingo, but for me it's very stimulating reading. And funky.

Stephenson's creation of his futuristic worlds is the other thing I enjoy about his books. He creates his worlds with complete confidence, and you feel that for him the world exists and that Stephenson has intimate knowledge of its language, culture and history. Occasionally he gives these details explicitly, but more often he lets us get a "feel" for his world gradually and indirectly, creating a complex world that isn't intrinsically good or bad, and is full of characters who are nearly as complex. I love how vivid his creations are.

I've only read two of his novels, but would love to read anything he has written. The three Stephenson novels I know of are in completely different settings (i.e. worlds), all with technology as the central theme. SNOW CRASH and THE DIAMOND AGE are both set on futuristic Earth where morals, laws, and technology have all travelled an extreme distance down the paths that they're now on. CRYPTONOMICON is a focused on World War II codes and code-breaking, but with a variety of settings across the globe and across time.


AGATHA CHRISTIE

You know those honorary degrees and doctorates they give famous people? Well Agatha Christie is my 'honorary' favourite. I've got no idea whether she's the best writer of the 'whodunnit'. I've no idea if she'd even qualify as my favourite (I can't tell - I can't read her books anymore because I've read them all so often I know who the murderers are!). But she gets the honour because she was my introduction to the adult crime novel. (Before her, I was reading Encyclopedia Brown and Famous Five.)

Christie wrote novels set in the English upper classes from the 1920s to the 1970s, and the novels are in the classic 'whodunnit' style - a country house, a murder, a limited group of suspects (the daughter, the neighbour, the old flame, the ward)...
  • Who had the motive? Everyone.
  • Who had the opportunity? Everyone. Or sometimes no one.
  • Whodunnit? The reader has no idea (although undoubtedly at at least one point during the story you "knew" it was him!)
  • Who can solve the mystery? Hercule Poirot! Or Miss Marple! Or even Parker Pyne, Harley Quin, or Tommy and Tuppence on occasion.


MADE IN AMERICA by Bill Bryson

MADE IN AMERICA is the modern story of the english language in the United States of America. Bill Bryson is an amateur (or professional?) linguist, and examines the etymology of American words, with each chapter focused on a single facet of American culture (e.g. Shopping, Sports). As with all of Bryson's books, everything is told in a humourous way. I would say that this book is often laugh-out-loud, but to give you such high expectations would probably doom it. So I won't say it. (But it is.)


BOOKS and AUTHORS I'VE ENJOYED...


(Sorted alphabetically because sorting by preference would probably be so difficult it would make my ears bleed.)

Mystery / Crime

Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)

Dorothy Sayers (Peter Wimsey)

Elizabeth George (Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers)

Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody)

GK Chesterton (Father Brown)

James Patterson (Alex Cross; The Women's Murder Club)

Kathy Reichs (Tempe Brennan)

Ngaio Marsh (Roderick Alleyn)

Patricia Cornwell (Kay Scarpetta)

PD James (Adam Dalgliesh)

Ruth Rendell (Inspector Wexford plus many non-series)

Humour

Bill Bryson (travel; history; linguistics)

Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe series

Gary Larson (cartoons)

Grant Naylor (Rob Grant and Doug Naylor - Red Dwarf)

Scott Adams (cartoons; business humour)

Fantasy

Anne McCaffrey (Dragon series)

David Eddings (The Belgariad; The Mallorean; The Elenium; The Tamuli)

JRR Tolkien (Lord of the Rings)

Raymond E. Feist (Magician series)

Non-Fiction

Simon Singh (The Code Book; Fermat's Last Theorem aka Fermat's Enigma)

Stephen Jay Gould (popular science, e.g. evolution)

General Fiction

Barbara Vine (pseudonym used for Ruth Rendell's non-crime fiction)


OTHERS I'VE READ...


Stephen Donaldson

The Thomas Covenant Chronicles is a miserable, miserable fantasy series about an anti-hero who's a pathetic, petty, self-pitying rapist. If that sounds like your cup of tea, i wish you well. And to be fair, I only read the first in the series - maybe it gets better (it could hardly get worse!!!).

Tami Hoag

I really enjoyed the first Tami Hoag I read, Ashes to Ashes, but actually stopped reading the next one, Cry Wolf, because it was so sappy - like a Mills and Boon: stereotypical characters - the ugly duckling and and the rebel - who are bound to end up together because they hate each other at first sight. But Ashes to Ashes was very good (standard sicko-serial-killer-with-a-female-heroine-who-nearly-ends-up-as-a-victim-herself stuff). It's hard to say whether or not I'll ever try another one of hers.


BOOKS and AUTHORS I PLAN TO READ ONE DAY...


  • Neuromancer (William Gibson): This is a novel that Neal Stephenson's are repeatedly compared to.


  • Terry Pratchett: I have read some of the Discworld novels, but perhaps because I've heard so many people rave about him, I haven't been blown away by the books, which is why I've included him in this list rather than one of those above; I'm keen to become a Pratchett fan (although books with no chapter breaks take a bit of getting used to!).


  • Diana Gabaldon: I'm not into much in the way of either general or romantic fiction, but the time-travel component of these books might spark my interest.


  • Various Meaningful Novels: *Sigh* I feel like I SHOULD read some general fiction (e.g. Oprah's Book Club stuff), but I tried a Toni Morrison book ("Paradise") and didn't understand it at all. I think I prefer easy escapist fiction, or meaningful intellectual non-fiction. This intellectual fiction is beyond me.



YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS / COMMENTS


Email me with your recommendations for other authors/books I might enjoy. Try to include:
  • Author
  • Main Genre (Fantasy; Science Fiction; Crime; Humour; Other)
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