.................................................. .

Jack Olsen (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312241984/103-7352539-8399844?v=glance)
Christopher Berry-Dee (http://www.blake.co.uk/e-store/customer/product.php?productid=192)
Shaun Hutson (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0316860778/darkitexture-21/202-1165030-7494210).

I see a pattern emerging here! :o

I'm actually writing a script / diary based fiction book on a British Serial Killer. So I'm doing a bit of research.

I also need to start reading up on police books and how they solve crimes and track serial killers (the more factual the better) so if you know of some good reading I would be gratefull!

.................................................. .....

Neil Gaiman - I like all his stuff especially 'The Sandman' series.

Alistair Reynolds - Revalation Space etc. Probably one of the base SciFi writes around at the moment.

Nomme

Originally posted by spook1210
DB - not sure on the Police murder book front but I can recommend 'The Hunt for Britain's Paedophiles' by Bob Long and DCI Bob McLaughlin which accompanied a BBC2 programme. Not particularly easy reading due to the subject matter but very informative.
I'll have a nose around for some others for you!
Not sure if I could stomach that one. With the subject n all.... I'd would probably p*** me off more than owt.

Besides need to keep it more on the killer side of things. To get it as authentic as possible!

I've been reading a lot of James Herbert lately.

Jeffrey Deaver

If you want a good cyber crime novel checkout "The Blue Nowhere"

Best book I have read in ages.

Originally posted by DaBouncer
Not sure if I could stomach that one. With the subject n all.... I'd would probably p*** me off more than owt.

Besides need to keep it more on the killer side of things. To get it as authentic as possible!

Haven't read any myself but Patricia Cornwall has written loads of Forensic pathology type novels. They are supossed to be very good. She recently did one about Jack The Ripper which may be of interest to you.

Nomme

Terry Pratchett has to be one of my top ones.
Although I only re-read most of them now - love getting new ones so can read something for 1st time though.
And always like George Orwell - especially 'DOwn & Out in Paris + London' - try it its wicked.

Patricia Cornwell is excellent. I have read all of Medical Examiner books. I'm just waiting for the next one.

She writes about a lady called Kay Scarpetta who is a medical examiner. They are written with great accuracy and detail.
I finished the last one over 18 months ago and sadly she hasn't yet brought another one out.

Marian Keyes and Stephen King!
Come one LouiseB, this thread is made for you! :D

Just read
"Hollow Chocolotae Bunnies of the Apocalypse" by Robert Rankin ('The Drinking Man's H.G.Wells')

Utterly mad, quite brilliant, very funny - if you like that sort of thing. If you don't like that sort of thing, you might find the in-jokes within in-jokes a bit tiresome.

Reading (for the umpteenth time)
"Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who has never written a bad book.
also
"Bad, bad toys for bad, bad boys" by Will Self - Short stories, strange and unsettling
"The sacred art of stealing" by Christopher Brookmyre

If you like fast paced crime fiction and you haven't tried Christopher Brookmyre, then give it a shot - a kind of Scottish Carl Hiaasen - in your face, funny, graphic and begging for a film option. This book features a diminuitive rangers supporting asian woman DI in glasgow puzzling out a dadaist bank robbery - great stuff.

I'm so happy, I've just found out that Cornwell is releasing another Kay Scarpetta book this month!!! yippeeeee

Originally posted by steelblade
Patricia Cornwell is excellent. I have read all of Medical Examiner books. I'm just waiting for the next one.

She writes about a lady called Kay Scarpetta who is a medical examiner. They are written with great accuracy and detail.
I finished the last one over 18 months ago and sadly she hasn't yet brought another one out.
I agree, I've read all of the Kay S books. Having said that, I am continually disappointed at the endings, they always seem to end up killing the villain. They very rarely allow due process to be seen to be done. Is that perhaps due to their lack of faith in the American Justice system?

Other authors include P D James, Elizabeth George, John Grisham, John Buchan, Alan Garner.
Currently reading:
Peter Dorey, British Politics since 1945
Morag Joss, Fruitful Bodies
Stephen King & Peter Straub, Black House

Definitely Sue Townsend just for the fact she did the Adrian Mole series and that was my favourite series ever - incuding the one where hes an adult and works in a restaurant even though everyone else seemed to think it wasn't as good.

I like 'The Queen and I' by Sue Townsend best of hers

I've just finished Way Station by Clifford D. Simak - lovely gentle paced sci-fi character based story.

and some short stories (more sci-fi) as well.

Although some people think that all sci-fi is battle of the planets type boys stuff - I think that's just bad pulp - I would say that at it's best sci-fi can use the idea of aliens or whatever to look at humanity from a fresh perspective.

How long have you got?

When I was a kid I liked Enid Blyton (even though we were not encouraged to read her), especially the Faraway Tree, Mallory Towers and St Claires, I liked the Famous Five but was less fond of the Secret Seven. I also liked The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series (Narnia) (at least as good as Harry Potter IMO) and anything by Nina Bawden.

I have dallied with various authors over the years but in the end I have decided that what I like best is;

Crime, thrillers and whodunnits, from old authors like Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers to more modern authors like Sue Grafton (A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar etc) and both the Kellermans (Faye and Jonathan), Elizabeth George (fab and set in England) and Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine and P D James and Ian Rankin and Reginald Hill .... and millions of others

Horror and scary books from authors like the grand master Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Sean Hutson, James Herbert (set in the UK)

Classical books like Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters.

Older, period stuff, part "documentary" like a lot of George Orwell - Road to Wigan Pier, Clergyman's Daughter, Coming up for Air and Alan Sillitoe.

Books that other people think I should read - the Orange shortlist for instance, that fabulous Autograph Hunter by Zadie Smith, lots of the stuff on the book list from my course at the Poly all those years ago, JD Salinger and Iris Murdoch and Carson McCulloch and Evelyn Waugh.

Funny books like Terry Pratchett and Sue Townend

Warm books like anything by Nick Hornby or John O'Farrell or Helen Fielding


and wonderful children's poetry by Edward Lear and Spike Milligan and ...

...well I did ask you how long you had got

And if I could only have one author on my desert island Sue, it would be George Orwell.

Thanks for asking

Just reading John O'Farrell's The Best a Man Can Get. Very funny and far too close to my own circumstances (spending all day on this 'kin forum!) for comfort!

All of Bill Bryson's books were '3 for 2' at WH Smith a while ago and I've just finished working my way through them - absolutely hilarious reads (except for Mother Tongue).

I've been a big Pratchett fan for years but I think he's lost his edge of late. I think he's making them too much of an epic and I (and others who also like him) get bored in the last third of the book and give up.

A friend of mine has the original Star Wars trilogy books (dated 1977!) and he lent me those recently, which I also couldn't put down. "Star Wars" is best because there is loads more in the book than there is in the film - even after the 'special edition' they did a few years ago.

For girlies out there I can recommend "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold.

Aldous Huxley

Wilbur Smith

Tom Sharpe

Originally posted by LouiseB
How long have you got?

When I was a kid I liked Enid Blyton (even though we were not encouraged to read her), especially the Faraway Tree, Mallory Towers and St Claires,

Ooh my favourite book of all time was The Enchanted Wood. Have you read that? I used to believe there really was a tree that you could climb up and go to different worlds in.

You see what happens when someone puts you on the spot?

I forgot some of my biggest favourites!!!!

Of course Tom Sharpe

and ABSO blooming LUTELY Bill Bryson

Down Under is probably the funniest book I have read in an actual 34 year period, and at 10 books a week (on average) (someone else can do the maths) that is a big lot of books and authors.

and I have read the Lovely Bones and it was fabulous and I am happy to lend it to any Forumers (is that our new term) if they would like to borrow it

LouiseB
xxx

PS The enchanted wood was part of the series I mentioned yes, I loved them all, didnt they eat "melting moments" or something similar, rather a lot?

Yeah they did eat something like that they were toffees that never melted or something with the pointy eared thing. There was the world where the ground kept lifting up, the world where they got locked up at a school and the world where it was a massive market and everything was free as i remember.

Adam Hart-Davis
Scott Adams
George Orwell
Bill Bryson

:)

Originally posted by hiyabeing
I like 'The Queen and I' by Sue Townsend best of hers

Is that the one where anarchists get into power and the royal family is scrapped and they all move onto a council estate??

If so, it is truly fab!

I like:

Jeanette Winterson

Carol Shields

Jackie Kay

Chuck Palahniuk

Nick Hornby

and loads, loads, loads more. I read obsessively.