Need author suggestions

[familyman]

Very low on reading material now and I'm looking for something to read. I just finished War and Peace and Anna Karenina and enjoyed really enjoyed them both. My only forrays into more classical authors that I actually enjoyed were Dumas, who quickly became my very favorite author to date, and now Tolstoy. Other than those two my reading life has been filled with mostly pulp of various sorts. The Louis LAmour of my father and assorted romance books of my mother all got swept up and read in the boredom of youth. The usual Tom Robbins and Keouac which were much more enjoyable being read in a fog of sorts which is best left behind in college. My schooling in engineering did nothing to expose me to different works academically.
Any suggestions? Any particular author that you feel is particularly relavent to somebody on the edge of 30 with a family? Anybody that's just a good read without being garbage that's the book equivalent of crappy TV?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[tiger02]

One of my favorite authors is Umberto Eco. Foucault's Pendulum and especially The Name of the Rose. He's an Italian semiotics (the field that Dan Brown calls 'symbology' in his swill) professor who is one of the nearest things to a true Rennaisance Man in our day and age.

If you did like Brown's DaVinci Code, try The Rule of Four. Same idea, better scholarship. Both are to Eco what Jack and Coke is to 15 yo Jameson's.

Thomas Pynchon, if he's not in the same college-haze as Kerouac for you. The Crying of Lot 49 will make you wish he were. It will also help you understand most 'serious' novels written since.

Hope you find something you like,
Tom

 

[tsloop]

Even with all the books I've read Alexandre Dumas is still my favorite author to read. After him I like reading Charles Dickins, Shakespeare, and Plato. I also love to read Steinbeck, but mostly because his stories are based around this area and it's fun to go read cannery row then travel the 10 minutes and go down there to see how much its changed and to try to pick out locations he is talking about.

 

[Bradford]

A few of my favorites:

"The Mambo Kings play Songs of Love" - Oscar Hijuelos - great novel made into a so-so movie.

"Love in the time of Cholera" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - one of the most influential South American novelists.

"Days Between Stations" - Steve Erickson - out of print now but you can find copies - mystical, strange book that flows beautifully.

If you like Science Fiction - anything by William Gibson especially "Pattern Recognition" or his first novel "Neuromancer".

Additionally - anything by Neal Stephenson.

Also - the man who coined the phrase Generation X - Douglas Coupland - read "Microserfs", "Generation X" or "Girlfriend in a Coma."

Hope this helps,

Bradford

 

[globetrotter]

thomas mann and herman hesse

 

[RJman]

If you are a fan of Dumas, you will enjoy Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, which was made into the Dumas-free monstrosity "The Ninth Gate". Perez-Reverte also writes somewhat intellectualized period novels about such Dumasian swashbucklers -- the Capitan Alatriste or The Fencing Master come to mind.

Dumas' own oeuvre ran into the hundreds, so actually you could start right there.

In the same vein but schlockier were Eugene Sue, Ponson du Terrail and Rafael Sabatini.

If you liked Tolstoy, you might appreciate Turgenev or the short stories of Chekhov.

 

[Aaron]

Hey "Familyman,"

For ficition I'd recommend the following:

~"The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. A beautifully written story with a beautiful girl.
~"The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. One of my favourite novels.

 Non-ficiton

~"Not Fade Away: A short life well lived" by Peter Barton and Laurence Shames. An absolutly incredible story about a guy named Peter Barton who contracted cancer at 47 and faces death in an incredibly exiciting way. The guy packed so much into his short life it was amazing. He went to Columbia, became a ski bum in Aspen, played in a band that opened for James Brown, got an MBA at Harvard, and helped start a billion dollar company. He was also an incredibly devout family man and this book is part of the process of saying goodbye. Some of the sentances in this book will take your breathe away.

Hope this helps, and have fun with your selections.

A.

P.S.>I'll second Bradford's suggestion for "Love in the Time of Cholera" amazing book.

 

[mnemonic]

hermann hesse, steppenwolf
hermann hesse, narcissus and goldmund
heinrich böll, the clown
henrich böll, billiards at half past nine
oscar wilde, the picture of dorian gray
norton juster, the phantom tollbooth
henry miller, tropic of cancer
henry miller, tropic of capricorn
henry miller, the air conditioned nightmare
henry miller, black spring
albert camus, the plague
yevgeny zamyatin, we
yevgeny zamyatin, the dragon
c.s. lewis, the screwtape letters

all interesting. all rock and roll. all the time.

 

[TheRookie]

Given your recent Russian reading: The Brothers Karamazov

 

[familyman]

Thank you very much, you've give me a lot to chew on. I'm making a list and I'll pick up a few this weekend.
I'm thinking of starting with "The Grapes of Wrath". It just seems like a book I ought to read sometime in my life and I've just passed it over for too long. I may also pick up "The Brothers Karamazov", my wife read it a long time ago and said she enjoyed it significantly more than anything by Tolstoy. I'll hit many more of your suggestions as time permits. Thanks.

 

[nightowl6261a]

Bob Gucionne , Hugh Hefner, they always have been great reads IMO

 

[johnw86]

John Updike--the Rabbit series.

 

[AlanC]

If you like historical/military stuff try some Bernard Cornwell, Alan Mallinson or Patrick O'Brien. For something completely different read some Wendell Berry. Try Jayber Crow. Right now I'm reading through the two volume Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

 

[globetrotter]

tim obrian

 

[RJman]

Right now I'm reading through the two volume Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

Fantastic. Hopefully with the original Sidney Paget drawings.