Jack London, Dan Brown......?

Question

are authors I have really enjoyed lately. I am a new fan of literature and get so much more from a story if it stimulates me intellectually. Problem is I have to understand what is being written. I love these two guys- who should I try next???

Answer 1

I'd suggest Jeff Shaara. He writes historical fiction and I often kind myself trying to look up some of the folks he writes about to learn about them. Most of the characters in his novels are actual people rather than fictional character invinted strickly for his books, though their dialogue and some of what they do are fictional. Still, he does get me to think about these people and who they were, as well as to thinking about what may have actually happened.

Answer 2

John Steinbeck Cannary Row, Sweet Thursday, Tortilla Flat, East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl

Hermann Hesse Peter Carmizind, Beneath the Wheel, Siddhartha, and others

Raymond Chandler The Lady in the Lake, The Long Goodbye, The Little Sister, The Big Sleep

Rex Stout is a fun read...Nero Wolfe Mysteries

Kurt Vonnegout Jr. Cat's Cradle, Galapagos, Slaughter House Five, God Bless You Mr Rosewater, Sirens of Titan,
Player Piano....many others great reads all

SciFi The Planet Strappers (can't remember author)

James Hogan The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, Thrice upon a Time, Kicking The Sacred Cow(non-fiction)

Lawrence Sanders, Any and all, fun read mysteries...really interesting to me was his "The Tomorrow File"

You have so much to look forward to

I just remembered something....recently they took a vote among 100 or so writers as to the best book ever written and the winner came up with Don Quixote by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra...It is quite a story but I am not sure myself why it is felt by the experts to be soooo great

Just remembered Raymon Gallum wrote "The Planet Strappers".

Answer 3

Try Marisha Pessl: Selected Topics in Calamity Physics.
It is hilarious and very literary. Top ten best fiction books of 2006 from NY Times. And it's her first novel.
Here is a teaser: what if you moved around a lot as a kid because your Dad was a visiting professor at various colleges, and then you got to a new high school and began to realize that some of the people are people that have been in the other towns???
It's a mystery, but also a coming-of-age tale as well.
She has a website called calamity physics.com