What I've enjoyed recently, and think you will too.
Recent Books: Updated Jan. 26/2006
In 2004 Frank Warren began handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places, asking people to write down a secret they had never told anybody. That snowballed into a community service piece and a website. The things in this book are incredible. Some hilarious, some terribly sad, some sick or twisted. All revealing. Flip through a few pages and you are captured, compelled to see the next and the next. An amazing idea and a great book. The web site for PostSecret is: www.postsecret.blogspot.com, Frank Warren has received over 10,000 postcards to date. I saw Deanne's copy at the Chatterbox, and ordered one for myself two days later.
Bill Fitzhugh:
Books by Bill Fitzhugh
Highway 61 Resurfaced
Radio Activity
Heart Seizure
Fender Benders
Cross Dressing
The Organ Grinders
Pest Control
Christopher Paolini:
I just finished
Eldest. The writng has improved and the story
is getting multi-layered. I now have to wait for the
final book in the trilogy. Good books, Fantasy.
Paolini seems to borrow established dragon conceptions
from Anne McCaffery and middle earth-like
characterizations from J.R.R. Tolkien. Still with the
second boo the plost has been muc enriched.
These Next Authors were all Recommended by my good friend Kay Kneidenthal, I haven't read the Bill Fitzhugh yet, but based on her previous track record I will have to recommend it! l Funtastic reads. (If you don't have a sense of humor avoid these at all costs)
Current Favorite Authors
Christopher Moore:
Practical Demonkeeping
Coyote Blue
Bloodsucking Fiends (A Love Story)
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
Tim Dorsey:
Florida Road Kill
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Orange Crush
Triggerfish Twist
The Stingray Shuffle
Cadillac Beach
Torpedo Juice
In this hilarious series of book's TimDorsey's protagonist is one Serge A. Storms. A Florida historian who really dislikes bad and ill-mannered people. Often enough to kill them (they always seem to deserve it, they are genuinely bad, often killers themselves). The body counts really mount up in these books. As do the laughs. Although Serge often kills, he has a big heart and champions the causes of the underdog and the little guy. Serge is a creative killer, coming up with lots of new and inventive ways to off the even worse antagonists. Often he just teams up with the wrong kind of people, and he's really a different guy when he's on his meds. Then there's a little problem of a metal case containing five million dollars that Serge feels belongs to him while every one else in this series is trying to get it.
I've read the first five, and have Cadillac Beach and Torpedo Juice on the shelves waiting for me to finish the current two or three I'm reading now. They are riotously fun. I highly recommend them.
Perennial Favorites: Just buy and read these guys. Carl Hiaasen, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Tom Robbins, Clive Barker.