Catherine Price
I was a bit disappointed that many of the places Price lists are related to a personal anecdote (albeit hilarious), don’t really exist (hell) or you would not be able to experience yourself (being a bull at the running of the bulls). However, there are plenty of doozies …
Carl Hiaasen
Hiaasen’s newest title, Star Island, is by far my favorite since Skinny Dip. Using the trite and oft-seen story of a starlet going off the rails, Hiaasen drags Cherry Pye, a mediocre singer filled with blind ambition, had her double Ann, into the psychotic world of …
Giles Foden
I was sad to discover that The Last King Of Scotland is a piece of fiction. Read it anyway. The plot is so unbelievable as to be highly believable. Picking up speed as the madness of dictator Idi Amin spins out, young Dr. Nicholas Garrigan is drawn into …
Matt Polly
Chinese kung-fu is one of the most glorious examples of obsessive-compulsive behavior in the history of human culture.
There is a certain type of person who needs something to hang onto, make their own and Focus On (yes, with caps). For some reason, martial arts (and religion) seem …
George McDonald Fraser
Rivaling Terry Pratchett for the king of humorous writing, George McDonald Fraser creates a fictional vision of the pirate life lifted directly from Treasure Island and Basil Rathbone movies with touches of slap-stick (if fruitcart then chase scene). Fraser’s pirates are walking, talking, larger-than-life pirate stereotypes. …
Eyewitness Travel
This is SUCH a dangerous book if you like to travel. Here are a thousand alternative trips and places to visit off the standard tourist trail. Usually less expensive than the big names, much less-visited and often harder to get to, these destinations are so very tempting. Find …
Osa Johnson
Osa and Martin Johnson were once household names. In the 1920s and 30s they brought the wilds of Africa, Micronesia and Borneo to the big screen in little towns. Both were originally from small towns in Kansas. While Martin dreamed of seeing the world and photographing it, Osa …
Steve Berry
Like fanciful action/adventure/historical stories but have too much self-respect to read Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code)? Try one of Berry’s fast-moving tales. The Charlemagne Pursuit has all the excitement of a Bond film with a heavy dose of Indiana Jones-style psuedo-archeaeology. Fun, silly, unbelievable and very …
Erik Larson
Thunderstruck, by the author of The Devil in the White City, is another action- and fact-filled non-fiction book. Weaving together the stories of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless, and the infamous murderer Dr. Crippen, Larson makes two disparate stories overlap and interweave into one. Based …
Brian D’amato
D’amato creates a fantastic near-future and recreates the lost Maya civilizations. As 2012 nears, the end of the Maya calendar, a large-scale disaster strikes. The disaster, followed by the end of civilization, are both predicted in a Maya codex. Jed DeLanda, a Maya descendant and expert in the …
This trio of true adventure books are completely gripping. The Lost City of Z, written by New Yorker columnist David Grann, chronicles his obsession with Victorian explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett. Trained by the Royal Geographical Society in London, Fawcett undertook numerous trips exploring the Amazon basin. Based on pottery …
Peter Sagal
Host of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, Sagal’s voice is all that a good liberal midwesterner should be. Whether discussing attending a swinger’s party, gambling, eating a 24-course gourmet meal or studying pornography, Sagal sounds wry, amused and slightly embarrassed, with strains of the midwest “well, to …
Will Thomas
I really enjoyed Thomas’ series of books featuring enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his Welsh assistant Thomas Llewelyn. While their clients are often wealthy aristocrats, the people they associate with and investigate live on the margins of proper Victorian British society – Jews, Asians, Irish terrorists and the …
Kyle MacDonald
I first became aware of the ORP project when I heard a mention of it on Alice Cooper’s radio show (yes he has a show, yes he is quite funny). Unemployed dreamer Kyle MacDonald decides he is tired of sponging off his patient girlfriend Dom. Faced with the …
Catherine Jinks
Where do you go to school if you are a genius and your father is an evil genius? Why, the evil genius academy, of course. Learn the fine arts of lying, stealing, poisons, hacking, disguise and other deeply useful skills. The only drawbacks? The matriculation rate is nothing …
PB Kerr
The Akhenaten Adventure, The Blue Djinn of Babylon and The Cobra King of Kathmandu.
Upon the removal of their wisdom teeth, twins John and Phillipa Gaunt discover they have strange magical powers. Sent off to their Uncle Nimrod, the Gaunt kids learn to use their djinn …
