Authors whose books you immediately buy just because you know they'll be a good read.

I got a bunch: Wilbur Smith, Stuart Woods, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Micheal Connley, Eric Van Lustbader, Bartle Bull, many others, who are yours?

Let's start with:

Jonathan and Faye Kellerman
Janet Evanovich
Kathy Reichs 
Robert Parker
Elmore Leonard
John McDonald
Patricia Cornwell

Aaron Elkins -  He does forensic pathology murder mysteries.
David Sedaris - Drop dead sarcastically funny.
Michio Kaku - Quantum physics
Richard Feyman - Deceased, but I still find his reprints.  Again, physics, with a funny delivery.
Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft.

John Connnolly - horror/suspense
Christopher Moore - biting, sarcastic hysterically funny
Carl Hiaasen - much the same as Moore, but different
Scott Turow - legal thrillers
Stephen King - duh
John Sandford - only the Prey novels
Tananarive Due - hard to explain
Kinky Friedman - same vein as Moore and Hiaasen


Now...authors I used to buy, but now check out from the library for free first because they have become unreliable (or just downright BAD, in which case I don't bother to get them from the library either):
James Patterson - used to be good, now schlock
John Grisham - used to be good, occasionally ok
Iris Johansen - great until she started teaming with her son
Tami Hoag - little too much romance in my mystery novel
Dean Koontz - seems like he's writing too fast

There are more in both lists, but those are what leapt to mind.

Larry McMurtry
Joseph Wambaugh
The Sterns
Elmore Leonard
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
James A. Michener
Frank Herbert

Ann Rule
J&M Stern

I'll add:
 
Andrew Greeley…both the Bishop Blackie & Nuala Anne McGrail/Dermot Michael Coyne series
 
Randy Wayne White...Doc Ford series
 
Jack Higgins…Sean Dillon series

felix4067


John Connnolly - horror/suspense
Christopher Moore - biting, sarcastic hysterically funny
Carl Hiaasen - much the same as Moore, but different
Scott Turow - legal thrillers
Stephen King - duh
John Sandford - only the Prey novels
Tananarive Due - hard to explain
Kinky Friedman - same vein as Moore and Hiaasen


Now...authors I used to buy, but now check out from the library for free first because they have become unreliable (or just downright BAD, in which case I don't bother to get them from the library either):
James Patterson - used to be good, now schlock
John Grisham - used to be good, occasionally ok
Iris Johansen - great until she started teaming with her son
Tami Hoag - little too much romance in my mystery novel
Dean Koontz - seems like he's writing too fast

There are more in both lists, but those are what leapt to mind.

 
I agree with your used to be good, except Patterson, my beef with him is when he doesn't write the book himself, he teams up, the end product can be iffy!

felix4067


John Connnolly - horror/suspense
Christopher Moore - biting, sarcastic hysterically funny
Carl Hiaasen - much the same as Moore, but different
Scott Turow - legal thrillers
Stephen King - duh
John Sandford - only the Prey novels
Tananarive Due - hard to explain
Kinky Friedman - same vein as Moore and Hiaasen


Now...authors I used to buy, but now check out from the library for free first because they have become unreliable (or just downright BAD, in which case I don't bother to get them from the library either):
James Patterson - used to be good, now schlock
John Grisham - used to be good, occasionally ok
Iris Johansen - great until she started teaming with her son
Tami Hoag - little too much romance in my mystery novel
Dean Koontz - seems like he's writing too fast

There are more in both lists, but those are what leapt to mind.

Just started on Hiaasen and reaally enjoying him.

If a new WEB Griffth comes out I will check it out. The new series he is doing (Black Ops etc) is not up to par with the Brotherhood of War or The Corp. I wish he would return to those series and fill in some of the missing 'activities' that he skipped in the first round.  He did that in the Brotherhood of War, but left open a couple of years in his 'Corp' series about the USMC.
  His OSS series in Argentina is OK, but is bogging down in the accounting of German Illegal Finacial activities and the Juan Peron Story line.

I really enjoy reading the works of Samuel E Morrison, the Mariner/Historian. His works on Marine History (Shipping and exploration, not USMC) is unsurpassed!.

Clive Cussler and James Michener are two of my favorites as well !

I wish Thomas Hardy would come out with a new novel.

mayor al


If a new WEB Griffth comes out I will check it out. The new series he is doing (Black Ops etc) is not up to par with the Brotherhood of War or The Corp. I wish he would return to those series and fill in some of the missing 'activities' that he skipped in the first round.  He did that in the Brotherhood of War, but left open a couple of years in his 'Corp' series about the USMC.
  His OSS series in Argentina is OK, but is bogging down in the accounting of German Illegal Finacial activities and the Juan Peron Story line.

I really enjoy reading the works of Samuel E Morrison, the Mariner/Historian. His works on Marine History (Shipping and exploration, not USMC) is unsurpassed!.

Clive Cussler and James Michener are two of my favorites as well !

Do you mind the coauthorship of Clive's books over the past few years?

Jen Weiner
Jackie Collins
Jodi Picoult

chewingthefat


I agree with your used to be good, except Patterson, my beef with him is when he doesn't write the book himself, he teams up, the end product can be iffy!

True...but I can't think of anything in the last five years he's written without a co-author.  Maybe one of the Cross novels, but I don't think so.

James Lee Burke.

Paul Theroux.....fiction or travel

Carol O'Connell..one you never hear about and some of the plots are gristly but her Mallory series (read them in order if possible) does a superb job of letting the mainj characters play off of one another! go find one!

felix4067

chewingthefat


I agree with your used to be good, except Patterson, my beef with him is when he doesn't write the book himself, he teams up, the end product can be iffy!

True...but I can't think of anything in the last five years he's written without a co-author.  Maybe one of the Cross novels, but I don't think so.

My wife's beef with Patterson is his short little chapters with the huge amount of white space at the end. She feels like she's paying for a 300 page book, but only getting about 175 pages.

FriedClamFanatic


Paul Theroux.....fiction or travel

Carol O'Connell..one you never hear about and some of the plots are gristly but her Mallory series (read them in order if possible) does a superb job of letting the mainj characters play off of one another! go find one!

ABSOLUTELY Carol O'Connell. Kathy Mallory is the most fascinating new character in detective fiction in decades. And yes -- read them in order; Ass with Robert B. Parker's "Spenser" novels, relationship changes and character development occur.

John D. McDonald,  may he RIP...loved Travis McGee

Pizza Nut

I like the sole-authored books by Cussler and Griffth better. But since all the new ones are dual-authored, I take what I can get !

chewingthefat


John D. McDonald,  may he RIP...loved Travis McGee

I started reading him before I went over to Vietnam in 1967 and continued reading him while there and finished his works after returning Stateside.  I still have all his books in a box and plan on reading them all again one day soon I hope.

His McGee series was wonderful as were all his other works.

mayor al


Pizza Nut

I like the sole-authored books by Cussler and Griffth better. But since all the new ones are dual-authored, I take what I can get !

Me too.

chewingthefat


John D. McDonald,  may he RIP...loved Travis McGee

Absolutely!!!

Greetings!

My fav. Authors are Herr Heinrich Böll, Mr. Ernest Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, and Charles Bukowski, all gone...

In my now elder Years I adore the Works of Hermann Hesse, esp. "Mit der Reife wird man immer jünger", etc.

Heinrich Böll



Book reading is a "Time-Out" to me, pure Pleasure, in our hectic World...


Michael

Robert B. Parker
Sue Monk Kidd
Carol O'Connell
Faye Kellerman
Johnathan Kellerman
James Lee Burke (one of the finest writers around)
Roy Blount, Jr.
Michael Malone
Andrew Vacchs
Carl Hiassen
Margaret Maron
Sharyn McCrumb
Robert Crais
David McCullough
A.J. Jacobs
Garry Wills
Joseph Ellis
John Grisham (I still like his stuff)
Lee Smith
Clyde Edgerton

To name a few.....

Me too for Robert Parker, Steve Martini, Ellen Berg, and Susan Isaacs

It used to be Anne Rice, but too many mediocre novels have turned me off

Stephen King used to be 1 for me, no more though.

The 1st new release I've bought in years is Dan Brown's latest.

Neil Gaiman

Douglas Preston
Lincoln Child
The books Preston and Child have done together, especially Cabinet of Curiosities
Dan Brown
Clive Cussler
Faye Kellerman
WEB Griffin's police series
Sharon McCrumb
Magaret Maron
Nelson De Mille