BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » books

Anthea_MI6 · May 3, 2012 2:53 pm

I love reading - currently reading through ACD however love Tess Gerritson (medical/crime/thriller) - Martina Cole, Jo Nesbo..and do not shoot me I like Stephenie Meyer..

Lisbeth · May 3, 2012 4:28 pm

I'm reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (again, it's one of my faves!)

Davina · May 3, 2012 4:59 pm

Such a shame Stieg Larsson died! What a talent!

Irene Adler · May 3, 2012 5:23 pm

Lisbeth wrote:
I'm reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (again, it's one of my faves!)

That's a great book. I loved each page of it. The second one is pretty good too, but I didn't enjoy the third as much as the others.

Lisbeth · May 3, 2012 5:43 pm

The third one is really heavy going! I've read it a few times and I still can't get my head around all the different groups of people and who's meant to have done what!

Milkomeda · May 3, 2012 5:55 pm

Davina wrote:
Have you read Fahrenheit 451? By Ray Bradbury. His short stories are very good too, if a bit...unsettling. The Illustrated Man is one of my favourites.

I like Fahrenheit 451 : ) and I also read Something wicked comes this way from Bradbury, but I never read The Illustrated Man, another book I have to read ! Well, there are so many books I want to read and I never find them at libraries or they aren't not translated in English or in French -_-, so I'll have to learn Russian to read an author I like very much, Sergey Lukyanenko.
I also love Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Stephen Donaldson, Philip K. Dick and his fabulous Blade runner, Anne Rice, Haruki Murakami, Clive Barker, Philip Pullman... but I never read Quebecer or Canadian books, I don't really know why.

Davina · May 3, 2012 6:18 pm

I've read a couple of Canadian books but I cannot remember the titles off hand. Will have to go and search through my bookshelves. 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' is great!

Philistine · May 19, 2012 7:01 am

I love to read urban fantasy. Although Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire are really great visionary "stories" I miss the connection to the real world. So I go for the "it seems everything is as we know it but there is something under the surface of reality" kind of books. I do not know if anyone here knows Christoph Marzi. He wrote Lycidas, Lilith and Lumen. This trilogy plays in London but there is an old town/world under the city with all the fantastic creatures you could imagine.

At the moment I read The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare.

Davina · May 19, 2012 12:00 pm

Not quite the same but a novel based in a world with an alternate history is: 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro. Written in 2005 it was made into a film in 2010.

Molly Hooper · May 19, 2012 12:17 pm

I'm reading a study in scarlet on my Kindle!

(oops, I just realised, this is Sherlock-related!)

Last edited by Molly Hooper (May 20, 2012 7:24 am)

SusiGo · June 11, 2012 6:25 am

Apart from Sherlock I always loved Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey and read the novels more than once. When I was still at school I also watched the TV films with Ian Carmichael (oops, that was really a long time ago ).

Some favourite books which are not that old:
Lionel Shriver, We need to talk about Kevin
Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely loud and incredibly close

Regarding Harry Potter: First I read all books in English and afterwards I read them to my son in the German translation, all seven of them. And I still enjoy them .

Sherli Bakerst · June 11, 2012 10:41 am

Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey books are just about my favorite series ever. I've read them many times and have the DVDs with Ian Carmichael, whom I thought was so much better than the other guy who played Wimsey.

Dick Francis is another favorite--so sad when he passed away; the books now written by his son are okay, though.

Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy is fantastic! It's what makes me want to visit Wales, though now I have another reason, too. But I'm not as keen on the fourth book.

Really enjoyed Harry Potter, too, especially the first four books; I felt the last three didn't have the same originality to them as the others. I bought #6 (I think it was that one) in India right after it was published and it was great fun standing in line at a bookstore with all the Indians who were also fans. It really showed what a worldwide success the series was. I bought an earlier book in the series in Thailand and the size and jacket design were different from the US books I had, which I found interesting.

Diana Gabaldon's time travel books are also fun and very thick. Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma books are great if you like historical mysteries and of course, there's always Ellis Peters.

Yes, I like British fiction!

Last edited by Sherli Bakerst (June 11, 2012 10:57 am)

Davina · June 11, 2012 12:00 pm

Linking in with some earlier posts here, Ray Bradbury died.

For those who can get BBC I-player there was a piece about him on 'Last Words' this week.

Dramagod · June 13, 2012 9:48 pm

It wasn't until a decade ago that I discovered how much fun reading books can be. Until then I was only a movie man. Now I'm glad I'm both. At the moment I'm reading these:

Sherlock Holmesin parhaat (a finnish short story collection)
The Dark Tower VII - Stephen King
My Boring-Ass Life - Kevin Smith
Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds
Moby Dick - Melville
Body Language - Allan Pease

I like scifi, horror and thriller novels. E.g Pratchett's Discworld, Timothy Zahn's Star Wars and Stephen King's Dark Tower series. A couple of recommendations for people who enjoy these genres:

"The Dice Man" by Luke Reinhardt
"The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks
"Song of Kali" by Dan Simmons
"The Rawshark Texts" by Steven Hall
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

Milkomeda · June 15, 2012 11:48 pm

Davina wrote:
Linking in with some earlier posts here, Ray Bradbury died.

For those who can get BBC I-player there was a piece about him on 'Last Words' this week.

It's really sad ! I like him a lot and I think it's stupid that writers are never mentioned in news (at least in my country), but if an actor or singer dies they'll talk a lot about it. Well... For those who really don't know who Bradbury was, you have to read one of his books. He was an excellent writer
.

And I love The dark tower ! They are my favorite King's books !

Last edited by Milkomeda (June 15, 2012 11:50 pm)

hepzibah · June 16, 2012 5:28 pm

Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man are both brilliant works of fiction. While there is plenty of sci fi writers out there, I'm not sure whether their reputations will last like Ray Bradbury.

Dramagod · June 16, 2012 5:36 pm

By the way, do any of you guys have an account at librarything.com? Was just wondering if you do and you have listed all your books there (like I have) I might check if we have a similar taste and perhaps find some new ones I haven't heard of before. Or somewhere else online where I could check your lists.

Milkomeda · June 16, 2012 8:27 pm

I didn't know it exists, but it sounds interesting. I'll have a look !

sherlockskitty · June 23, 2012 9:20 am

I read mostly stuff about royalty. Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe was a great one. Books by Jean Plaidy about the Tudors, the Stuarts, Queen Victoria, etc, were a great read too. I've read ALL the Harry potter books. Couldn't put those down, really. Plus the 2 other ones by JKR--Fantastic Beasts, and the quidditch one.

I too have read some shakespeare, and some of the classics. All of the Jane Austen novels, And Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Mansfield Park, oh....and the Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas. I've read his other books too. Oh boy. I love that time period. Anyone remember Get Smart the tv series? I went into a collectible bookstore, and found some novels based on that series.

Now, if only someone would be wise enought to write stories based on this Sherlock Series, I'd buy those, too. I know they have ACD's books with Benedict and Martin on the covers, but I already have all the SH stories in one volume. There's one story in there that I am missing tho-- "How Watson Learned the trick". does anyone remember which series of SH books that was in? I used to have the series (casebook, Memoirs, etc) separately, but I gave them all away when I got this one volume.

KeepersPrice · June 24, 2012 1:28 pm

Thanks for posting these recommendations. I always like to have a good book going and these suggestions will be really helpful. I highly recommend Mary Renault's Alexander the Great trilogy, "Fire from Heaven", "The Persian Boy" and "Funeral Games". They are remarkable. I return to them over and over again.

I was also a huge fan of Marion Zimmer Bradley - particularly her Darkover series. Not all the books are of equal caliber but "Heritage of Hastur" is very good and can stand on it's own even if you have not read any of the others.