What do you read? Review Authors You Like!

Terry Pratchett is my go to relaxer but i read a lot of historical fact books as well. Conn Igguden has doen some great series on Caesar and Ghengis Khans dynasties which mix truth and fiction quiet well.
Always enjoyed Clancy first i read was without remorse and is still my favourite after all these years (the films a butchers job of the story no connection other than the title and the characters name).
Tolkien ive read many times but always felt they are a labour more than anything, on a side note John Tolkien was a catholic priest in the city i live in and my cousin was also a priest in the same diocise i actually read a first edition copy of the hobbit owned by Tolkien himself, whilst visiting my cousin one day, didnt get enough time to finish it but its a fun fact.
The card by Arnold bennet is a great book and set here where i live the film with Alec guiness is actually a quite good adaptation, Allegedly as well the old Stell mill and pottery kilns here burning in the night were inspiration for H G Wells and war of the world.

I second Conn Iggulden. Great books. I've read the two mentioned and the series on the War of the Roses.

For history, I like Ian W. Toll's Pacific War trilogy and Six Frigates on the birth of the US Navy.

Sci fi here mostly - Cyril Kornbluth is a favorite of mine "Marching Morons", among many others, Asimov is good but usually a bit too wordy for my liking, Veliskovsky for my thinking times.

Fantasy, Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (except books 9 and 10) but being a massive 14 book series a couple of books are going to rank low.

Of late, Mick Herron's "Slow Horses" series. MI5 employees, all of who have failed in varying fashions, that it would be inadviseable to outright fire, are exiled to a musty office building in a bad part of town, in the hopes that working for the veteran spy Jackson Lamb, who has zero social skills and considers it his mission to drive his employees to quit prompts them to resign. Of course, despite MI5 intentions, some spy work keeps coming their way. An amusing set of character studies, and a thinly veiled review of spy craft over the last few decades.

Michael_M said:

Fantasy, Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (except books 9 and 10) but being a massive 14 book series a couple of books are going to rank low.

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Yeah, just re-read the whole series last year. it took 5 months.

For business Ive read

Only the Paranoid Survive - How Intel lost the memory business to Taiwan.

My other book I've read recently is a bit more existential.

Man's Search for Meaning by Frankel - A Holocaust survivor feels immense guilt after being released from the concentration camps and becomes terrified of not living a good enough life when his friends and family have all died in camps. Real soul searching stuff but motivational reading

Ed Panek said:

Man's Search for Meaning by Frankel - A Holocaust survivor feels immense guilt after being released from the concentration camps and becomes terrified of not living a good enough life when his friends and family have all died in camps. Real soul searching stuff but motivational reading

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I enjoyed another survivor's memories written/collected with a slightly greater length of time having passed: Primo Levi's The Periodic Table.

The BBC adapted much of this a few years back; I found that adaptation to be quite accessible. Those recordings are currently unavailable at the BBC but may be available elsewhere.

James Herriott's All Creatures Great and Small series has to be my favorite. It is easy to just pick it up and read a chapter that makes me smile while not having to read the whole book. I also very much liked the Outlander and Poldark series.

Right now I am (again) enjoying Noah Gordan's The Physician series.

The way they processed the ordeal in real time was unreal. Never knowing what the guard was wanting as he entered your building. No clue where any of your family or friends are or if they live. Any illness or injury meant certain doom.


I recall a scene in Schindler's List. A Jewish structural engineer is asked to discuss the building under construction. The Jewish engineer states the foundation is wrong and needs to be redone. A nazi officer pulls out his pistol and shoots him dead on the spot. Then states "OK you heard him tear it down and start over" Yikes.