What We Really Like. No spills to clean up here.
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STEPHE’S PICKS
Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (science fiction, 1987)
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (fantasy, 1996)
Purity, Douglas Clegg (horror novella, 2000)
Mischief, Douglas Clegg (horror fiction, 2000)
Nightmare House, Douglas Clegg (horror fiction, 2004)
Synergy, M.D. Benoit (science fiction mystery, 2007)
Blood Memory, Greg Iles (suspense/thriller, 2005)
The Husband, Dean Koontz (suspense/thriller, 2006)
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (literary fiction, 2002)
The Penny Tree, Holly Kennedy (literary fiction, 2007)
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love, Jill Conner Browne (humor/relationship, 1999)
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big-Ass Cookbook (and financial planner), Jill Conner Browne (humor/cooking, 2003)
Acacia: The War With The Mein, David Anthony Durham (epic fantasy, 2007)
I have friends’ books to buy and read still; don’t be surprised if there are additions to the list. So, anyone else have picks? What did you fall for? Bring it on. ♥
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The Fiction Focus Group of Cobb County
SYLVIA’S PICKS
Barbara Kingsolver, Vegetable, Animal, Miracle.
What it’s about: A year of living off the land and “local” as far as possible. Fascinating in many ways. The woman knows a lot, so there’s much to learn about many things. It’s also guilt-inducing. But she’s no wild eyed utopian. She knows that people can’t all live like she and her family did for a year, but she also knows that we should be more conscious about the impact our daily choices have on the environment and thus society.
Grendolyn Brooks, People of the Book.
What it’s about: The story of a Jewish haggadah, a book of prayer. It’s a great novel about a real historical relic. The Jewish book is saved by a Muslim librarian in Sarajevo before the fighting there. That’s true, but Brooks then creates all the what-might-have-happened to the book since its creation in Spain at the time of the Inquisition. She suggests a lot about the creativty that flows from tolerant, multicultural societies.
DARRELL’S PICKS
Tai Pan and Shogun, by James Clavell. These are lush, beautifully written works of historical fiction from a man who knew not only the history of China and Japan respectively, but really understood the culture, as well.
The Ninja series, Shan, and Jian, by Eric Van Lustbader. Like James Clavell in his knowledge of Chinese and Japanese culture, but with a dash of Robert Ludlum or Tom Clancy, thrown in. There is a smorgasbord of political intrigue, assasins, and ninjas (oh my). But also characters that are real and complex.
Salem’s Lot, and The Stand, by Stephen King. King has always been one of my absolute favorite authors. He is able to create characters that are so real, so three-dimensional, that you can’t stand to see anything bad happen to them. Which, of course, is what makes his brand of horror so effective, especially when pit against such good bad guys like the ones in these two books.
The Eye of the World series, by Robert Jordan (RIP, my friend). Like Stephen King, Jordan created a cast of characters that seem entirely real, even as they are hurling balls of fire at one another with their bare hands. A historian, and a graduate of the Citadel, Jordan was able to create battles and intrigues that simply crackle with excitement. These are not your everyday Dungeons and Dragons books (not that I’m judging). These books have a depth to them that any writer should strive for.
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LiveJournal
Neo_prodigy’s Picks
My favorite reads of all time are: The Harry Potter series, The Great Gatsby (as we’ve so recently discovered), and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Something else will probably come to mind later but those are definitely my faves.
Irene Peterson’s Picks
The one that got me started reading romance was Johanna Lindsey’s Warrior’s Woman. I think it was the most wonderful story and I’d never read a real romance before. This one hooked me good.
After that, I read anything and everything, mostly historical, then I found contemporary romances and that did it for me. I will read historical stuff at times, but my love is contemporary, somewhat funny, “nobody dies” stories. 
All Edgar Rice Burroughs books
All Robert E. Howard
E.E.”Doc” Smith
Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein
Arthur Conan Doyle (except the fairy stuff)
Hans Holzer’s ghost hunting books
And I must not forget The Other Side of Midnight, by Sidney Shelton. At the time, it stopped me from doing grievous bodily harm to someone…. 
[Stephe's note: Ha! Been there, done that, Irene.]
Kenneth Mark Hoover’s Picks
Below is a list of fiction that has, from the age of about ten years old to the present day, made a notable impression on me both as a writer and a human being. These novels and stories are critically seminal in my early adolescent aspirations and adult growth and stabilization as a professional writer. These books and stories have one other thing in common. Their innate literary power and other-worldly magic stoked and fed the desire inside me to write.
And, to write well.
1. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller, 1961
2. Time Enough for Love, by Robert A. Heinlein, 1973
3. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, 1974
4. Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany, 1974
5. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
6. 1984, by George Orwell, 1949
7. Inferno, by Dante Alighieri
8. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, 1929
9. The First Men in the Moon, by H.G. Wells, 1901
10. Dracula, by Bram Stoker, 1897
wldhrsjen3’s Picks
I’ve read so many great books, and I’ve loved so many. Here are some of the ones I’ve loved enough to read again and again.
WORKING TROT by Jesse Haas
KEEPING BARNEY by Jesse Haas
THE PRYDAIN CHRONICLES by Lloyd Alexander
GRACELING by Kristin Cashore
TERRITORY by Emma Bull
THE THIEF by Megan Whalen Turner
THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA by Megan Whalen Turner
THE KING OF ATTOLIA by Megan Whalen Turner
THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss
THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick
I, MONA LISA by Jeanne Kalogridis
THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR by Sharon Kay Penman
THE LYMOND CHRONICLES by Dorothy Dunnett
THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S. Beagle
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame
Ebenstone’s Picks
I tried to think back to my childhood and I know that I was an obsessive reader of nonfiction picture books about everything from nature to the military. But the first “books” I can honestly remember are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Glass Elevator. To this day, they are still two of my favorites. They are probably two of the things that pushed me towards speculative fiction. Roald Dahl is a genius and the work he does is amazing. And reading more and more about him, the more I realize that he was an early inspiration to me as a writer.
The first of the books that were “top of the head” books were The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I don’t think I need to go into a long speech about this. I’ve read them numerous times in my life…the first time as a sixth grader…and they truly are the great granddaddy to all the fantasy writing that is being done today.
In 7th grade I discovered a series that I’m sure many out there would agree probably had more to do with their love of fantasy than LOTR…The Dragonlance Trilogy. A classic that I reread numerous times in my early and mid-teens, which alongside The Icewind Dale Trilogy stand as beacons of late 80s fantasy adventure goodness. While trying to reread them recently I felt that they were too “gamey” for me. That doesn’t mean I still don’t love them, because I do. I think when we look back on “tie-in” literature, it’ll be compared to the pulp stories of the 20s, 30s and 40s!
In high school and college I discovered “literature” and immersed myself into some pieces while violently resisting some. Among my favorite school books:
To Kill A Mockingbird
Beowulf
Animal Farm
Shane
The Great Gatsby
Candide
Glengary Glenn Ross
The Hairy Ape
The Natural
As I moved on through college…multiple times…I discovered the works of William Shakespeare and I’ve been hooked ever since. Among my favorites:
Henry V
Henry IV Parts 1 and 2
Romeo & Juliet
Hamlet
Othello
MacBeth
I dropped out of college and was kind of listless in my reading. Then I discovered, based on a recommendation in the old Barnes and Nobles science fiction/ fantasy booklets they released every two months, a series called The Deathstalker Series, a rollicking space opera loaded with starships, swordsmen, disruptor rays, vicious AIs, rebellious clones and looming darkness at the edges of space. I own the second and third books of the latest series, but haven’t gotten to them yet. I loved the originals.
It wasn’t until I graduated from Oswego State that all things changed. It was a brutally cold afternoon on my last day on campus (December 2000) at the school before I graduated. I had some money in my pocket from selling textbooks, so I was going to get some pizza at Cam’s NY Style Pizzeria and decided I wanted to read something, so I went to The River’s End Bookstore a few doors down. I picked out a little mass market paperback with a long haired lad riding a horse with a massive castle in the background, surrounded by snow and trees. The book? A Game of Thrones. And that day my life changed. I ripped through the available books, devouring them with gusto. A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords became part of my personal canon and inspired my to finish my first novel. While not as great, but still very good, A Feast For Crows is necessary.
As I dove back into writing epic fantasy, in 2003 I was sent an offer for a free half of a new book called The Briar King by Greg Keyes and I was hooked. The funny thing is for all my “inspiration” because of ASOIAF, my first novel “sounds” more like Keyes than Martin. The entire Kingdoms of Bone and Thorn are all on my recommended list, even if the series fizzles at the end instead of rising to the occasion.
At this point, I’ll admit that GRRM spoiled me and I became very snobbish about what I read…that and I decided to go back to school and become a teacher. This meant the classics and now that I’m teaching, I wanted to include a list of books that I love to both teach and read:
The Pearl
A Raisin In The Sun
Lord of the Flies
The Color of Water
Fences
Maus
The Jungle
Fast Food Nation
Now I haven’t abandoned my love for epic fantasy, I’m just very picky now. Among my favorites: The Gentlemen Bastards series (Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies), ANYTHING by Tamora Pierce (YA/Teen epic fantasy), The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan, The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica by James A Owens (JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis as action heroes), The Underland series by Suzanne Collins, and Summerland by Michael Chabon.
I have a diverse list that is kind of all over the place. I hope that someday, Seasons of Destiny (Winter’s Discord, Spring’s Tempest, Summer’s Sacrifice and Autumn’s Glory) will be on your reader’s lists along side with “Young Jaiman” and whatever else I decide to write.
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